Midday

Former Baltimore mayor Catherine Pugh walked out of a federal courtroom yesterday with a three-year sentence -- after more than seven years of defrauding entities with business before the city and the state while she was a Senator and the Mayor, and evading the taxes she owed from the profits of that fraud. She was also ordered to pay nearly $700,000 in restitution and forfeitures.

US District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow announced the sentence to a hushed courtroom in downtown Baltimore after hearing from prosecutors, who argued Pugh should serve nearly five years, and Pugh’s attorneys, who suggested that a sentence of a year and a day was appropriate. The court allowed Pugh a little time to put her affairs in order, before she reports to federal prison.

For a legal analysis of the Pugh sentencing, Tom is joined in the studio by Baltimore attorney Steven Levin, a partner at the firm of Rosenberg Martin Greenberg and a former federal prosecutor with the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland; and Ronald Weich. He’s the Dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law. Mr. Weich also had an extensive career in government, serving as an assistant US Attorney General during the Obama administration and as chief counsel to Senator Ted Kennedy and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

This conversation was livestreamed on WYPR's Facebook page. You can watch the video here, from the beginning to 19:55 of the feed.

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

It's Thursday, and time for another of theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck's weekly reviews of the Maryland stage. Today, she talks with Tom about Purlie, the 1970 Broadway musical hit that's getting a spirited revival at Arena Players, the oldest continually performing and historically African-American theater community in Baltimore.

Set in the segregated, Jim Crow-era American South, Purlie tells the story of a charismatic traveling preacher named Purlie Victorious Judson, who returns to his small Georgia town in the hope of saving Big Bethel, the community's church, and free the indentured black cotton pickers who work on oppressive Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee's plantation.

Purlie - which earned five Tony Awards, including for Best Musical, credits its book to veteran stage and screen actor Ossie Davis, Philip Rose and Peter Udell, with lyrics by Udell and music by Gary Geld. The musical was based closely on Davis's 1961 Broadway play, Purlie Victorious, which was adapted in 1963 into the film Gone Are the Days! The movie version featured many of the play's Broadway cast, including Davis, Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Beah Richards, Godfrey Cambridge, and Sorrell Booke.

Directed at Arena Players by Troy Burton, with musical direction by Tevin Brown, Purlie stars Antoine Williams in the title role, along with Stacey Saunders as Lutiebelle and Katrina Jones as Missy. The cast also includes Nate Couser, Xander Golden, Wanda Tyler, Lisa Wooten, Zolita Lester and Michael Barrett.

Purlie continues through Sunday, March 1 at Arena Players Baltimore, located at 801 McCulloh St., Baltimore, Maryland 21201. Click here for ticket and location info.

[Near the end of today's live theater review, news broke of the sentencing of former Baltimore mayor Catherine Pugh. As he'd promised throughout the hour, Tom brought WYPR's courthouse reporter Emily Sullivan immediately on the line for a live update. We've left the audio of Emily's debriefer in place, beginning at 7:32 into the segment.]

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

In 1999, Tracy Walder was a 20-year-old junior at the University of Southern California and a member of USC’s Delta Gamma sorority. She was also a history buff and an avowed news junkie who planned to be a teacher. Those plans were upended when she met a CIA recruiter at a job fair. After graduating from USC, she joined the CIA's global anti-terrorism operations.

The story of Walder’s five-year service at the CIA, her globe-spanning work in the agency's post-9/11 pursuit of Al-Qaeda operatives, and her subsequent stint as an FBI counterintelligence agent, is compellingly told in her new memoir, The Unexpected Spy: From CIA to The FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World’s Most Notorious Terrorists. Published by St. Martin's Press, it's co-written with best-selling novelist Jessica Anya Blau. Tracy Walder joins Tom in Studio A.

This conversation was livestreamed on WYPR's Facebook page. Watch the video here.

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

Race takes center stage in the race for President. As Democrats court African Americans in South Carolina, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist E.R. Shipp, Reverend Kevin Slayton, and University of Maryland Law Professor, Larry Gibson discuss why black votes matter

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

And now, it’s Midday on Ethics.

The coronavirus doesn’t only pose epidemiological challenges. It poses ethical dilemmas as well, particularly as governments grapple with containing the epidemic.

Whenever science and health news raises potential ethical concerns, we turn to Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, who joins me now in Studio A.

Dr. Kahn is the Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. He is one of the co-editors of The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics. And he has a recurring role in “Unnatural Selection” — a four-part series on Netflix about the possible uses of gene editing.

We livestreamed this conversation on the WYPR Facebook page. Click here to watch.

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

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

Today, we’re focusing on the politicization of healthcare on the campaign trail, and on the coronavirus, which has now spread to more than 30 countries.

Dr. Wen was Baltimore City Health Commissioner from 2015 to 2018 and then chief executive of Planned Parenthood. She is now a visiting professor of health policy and management at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. She’s also a distinguished fellow at the Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at GW. She joined Tom in Studio A.

We livestreamed this conversation on the WYPR Facebook page. Click here to watch.

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

Our series of Conversations with the Candidates continues with State Sen. Mary Washington. After a decade in Annapolis and winning a Senate seat in an upset victory in 2018, now, she’s running for Mayor of Baltimore. Senator Mary Washington makes her case for Charm City’s top job.

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

Lawrence Brownlee is one of the most exciting and in-demand opera singers on the scene today. The internationally acclaimed tenor— hailed by The Guardian as "one of the world's leading bel canto stars."—will make his Baltimore debut this Sunday at Shriver Hall on the campus of Johns Hopkins University.

Brownlee and pianist Myra Huang will present a new classical song cycle inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. The program will include a pre-concert talk with Lester Green of the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts.

You can find more information and purchase tickets on the Shriver Hall Concert Series website.

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

Paula Reid of CBS News on Roger Stone, whose future may include a Presidential Pardon, William Barr, whose future as Attorney General has been called into question and new Russian meddling fears. Julie Bykowicz of the Wall Street Journal, and Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post discuss the future of Democratic Presidential hopefuls after the vitriol in Vegas

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

It's Thursday, and that means Midday's theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, is back with another of her reviews of the Maryland stage. Today, she tells us about a new work by the young playwright Noah Diaz, called Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally, currently enjoying a world premiere at Baltimore Center Stage.

The play by Mr. Diaz -- a 3rd-year graduate student at the Yale School of Drama -- is a darkly comedic riff on the idealized "Dick and Jane" characters, with a family rife with dysfunction and dissembling, and dealing with the complexities of love, loss, disability...and dogs. Taylor Reynolds directs the action, with a cast that includes Noah Averbach-Katz (Spot), Michelle Beck (Jane), Jay Cobian (Dick, Jr.), Neimah Djourabchi (Richard), Treshelle Edmond (Sally), and Vanessa Kai (Mother). Scenic design is by Stephanie Osin Cohen.

Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally is a co-production with The Playwright's Realm, and is presented in collaboration with the Sol Project, a national theater initiative dedicated to amplifying the voices of LatinX playwrights. It continues at Center Stage through Sunday, March 1.

Following its run at Center Stage, the play heads to New York City for an off-Broadway run at A.R.T/New York Theatres.

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