Midday

Now, a conversation about the Blueprint for Baltimore. It's a project supported by The Open Society Institute-Baltimore and the T.Rowe Price Foundation, in partnership with several community groups -- including Black Leaders Organizing for Change (BLOC), CASA, Baltimore Votes, Black Girls Vote, and the No Boundaries Coalition. The goal of Blueprint for Baltimore is to survey as many as 12,000 Baltimore City residents – the largest issue-oriented survey in city history – about their priorities for the city on a range of public policy issues, including education, public safety, and housing, as the race for Mayor, City Council President and City Council move into high gear.

Joining Tom in the studio is Evan Serpick. He’s OSI’s Director of Strategic Communications, and was closely involved in the development of the survey.

Also joining us are project partners Tre Murphy, the co-founder and operations director for BLOC; and Lydia Walther-Rodriquez, Baltimore Regional Director for CASA of Maryland, a group that advocates for the state’s Latino and immigrant communities.

The Blueprint for Baltimore survey -- which can also be taken online -- concludes Sunday, December 8.

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.

Today, another in our series of Conversations with the Candidates. Tom's guest is University of Baltimore Law Professor Michael Higginbotham, who is running in the Democratic primary.

He’s had a long academic legal career. He’s an expert in constitutional law, human rights and race relations. He has lived and worked in the 7th District for more than 30 years.

Higginbotham is one of 32 candidates who will be on the Republican and Democratic special primary ballots in February.

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

Chef David Thomas of Ida B’s Table and John Shields of Gertrude’s Chesapeake Kitchen at the BMA are in the house for our annual pre-Thanksgiving edition of What Ya Got Cooking. Plus, Tom's mother, Rosemary Hall, brings her motherly and authoritative musings on all things Thanksgiving to the show!

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

Today, we begin a new series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2020 in advance of the special primary election in February, and the local and national primary elections in April.

The congressional vacancy in the 7th District created by the death last month of Representative Elijah Cummings has attracted 32 candidates to an election to succeed him, including Congressman Cummings’ widow, a former aid, four state legislators and a law professor.

Twenty-four Democrats and eight Republicans have filed to run in a special primary election on February 4th. The general election for the 7th District will take place on April 28th, which is primary day for all other races in MD, including the Presidential Primary.

Kweisi Mfume joins Tom today in Studio A. He is familiar to many 7th District voters. He held the seat for five terms -- from 1987 to 1996 -- before leaving Congress to head up the NAACP. He stepped down from that position in November 2004.

Since 2012, he has served as chairman of Morgan State University’s Board of Regents. He has also worked as a broadcaster, in the nonprofit health care industry, and as a consultant.

Kweisi Mfume is 71 years old. He is married to Dr. Tiffany McMillan. He has six grown children. He lives in Southwest Baltimore.

We invite listener comments and questions for Congressman Mfume.

This conversation was live-streamed on WYPR's Facebook page. To watch the video, click here.

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

The anti-nuclear activist Elizabeth McAlister, a founder of Baltimore's Jonah House, talks about her conviction in a federal court as one of the activists known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7.

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In Baltimore County, landlords are now required to accept housing vouchers. WYPR reporter John Lee, realtor Ben Frederick and County Council member Julian Jones join Tom Hall to explain what that means for landlords and tenants alike.

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

Tom's guest today is the City Solicitor of Baltimore, Andre M. Davis.

Mr. Davis served for more than 30 years as a judge -- on the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the US District Court, the Circuit Court for Baltimore City and the State District Court.

The City Solicitor -- a member of the Mayor's Cabinet and the head of the City Law Department -- oversees a staff of more than 100 lawyers, and serves as one of five members of the Board of Estimates, the municipal spending authority.

Judge Davis was appointed to the position of Solicitor by former Mayor Catherine Pugh, who resigned from office last spring, and who pleaded guilty yesterday to four of 11 counts in an indictment that was unsealed the day before. Judge Davis joins Tom in Studio A for the hour, and answers listener comments and questions.

We livestreamed this conversation on the WYPR Facebook page.

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

For the second time in 10 years, and for the second time in the history of the city, a Baltimore mayor has pleaded guilty to criminal behavior while in office. Welcome to this special edition of Midday. Tom Hall spends the hour talking with reporters and legal experts about the guilty plea of former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh. Yesterday, she was charged with 11 counts of wire fraud, conspiracy, and tax evasion. She appeared in federal court a couple of hours ago, and pleaded guilty to 4 of those charges, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two counts of tax evasion.Two of her close aids, Gary Brown and Roslyn Wedington, have also pleaded guilty to related charges.Tom begins today's analysis of the Pugh indictment with WYPR’s Emily Sullivan, who was at the Federal Court House earlier this afternoon. We're joined next by The Baltimore Sun reporter Luke Broadwater, who first broke the story of Pugh's Healthy Holly book scheme, and then by fellow Sun reporter Kevin Rector, who's also done extensive reporting on the scandal. We get additional reaction to the Pugh indictment from City Councilman Bill Henry and from two legal experts: defense attorney William Purpura and former federal prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh, the man who prosecuted former Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon.

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

Today, it's another episode of Midday on Higher Education, our occasional series of conversations with the presidents of colleges and universities in our region and across Maryland.Joining Tom for the hour in Studio A is the president of Morgan State University, Dr. David Wilson. He is Morgan’s 10th president and has led the university since 2010.Morgan is the largest of Maryland’s four Historically Black College or Universities, and a visit to its campus in Northeast Baltimore reveals that it is growing by leaps and bounds. Several new buildings are slated to open in the next few years. And, defying a trend at many other institutions of higher learning, Morgan’s enrollment has increased about 15% over the last decade.

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(Because of special programming, our theater review this week could not be broadcast live, so we are posting it today to Midday's Webpage and podcast.)Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins us with another of her weekly reviews of the Maryland stage. Today, she spotlights the world premiere production by Rep Stage of E2, playwright Bob Bartlett's contemporary re-telling of Christopher Marlowe's 1593 drama, Edward II. In Marlowe's play, the infamous English monarch's homosexual relationship with a ----favourite---- named Gaveston, scandalizes his queen, sparks bloody discord within his court and eventually brings his reign to a tragic end. In Bartlett's play, King Edward's drama becomes a modern-day tale of rising anti-LGBTQ sentiment around the world; Marlowe's sprawling court is pared to just five characters forced to wrestle with the personal costs of political power.Directed at Rep Stage by Joseph W. Ritsch, Bartlett's play features Zachary L. Powell as Edward II, Alejandro Ruiz as Gaveston, Dane Figueroa Edidi as Queen Isabella, Robbie Gay as Mortimer, and Zach Rakotomaniraka as Edward III.E2 continues at Rep Stage (at Howard Community College) through Sunday, November 17. For ticket information, click here.

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