Midday

Today on the Midday News Wrap, Israel's Knesset remains deadlocked after Tuesday’s election. A Whistle Blower in the Intelligence Community raises concerns, but the Justice Department tells Congress it can’t know what those concern are. And, is a drone attack on a Saudi oil facility last Saturday the latest in a series of Iranian responses to the US campaign of sanctions and maximum pressure?David Makovsky is the Ziegler distinguished fellow at the Washington institute and director of the Project on Arab Israel Relations. His latest book is called 'Be Strong and Of Good Courage: How Israel’s Most Important Leaders Shaped It’s Destiny' which he wrote with Ambassador Dennis Ross. Julian Borger is the world affairs editor at the Guardian.

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

Tuesday was Constitution Day, the anniversary of the signing of America’s founding document in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. For the last several years, the MD Institute College of Art here in Baltimore has held a Constitution Day Symposium to discuss various issues of the day related to the Constitution. This year’s panel will include Courtland Cox, a civil rights activist who was with the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, when he was a student at Howard University. In the 1970s, he served as the Secretary General of the Sixth Pan-African Congress and international meeting of African people in Tanzania. He also served in the Clinton Administration as the Director of the Minority Business Development Agency. He is currently a consultant with the school system in Washington, DC. He joins us on the line from Washington.

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

Today on Midday: a topic that has run hot and cold in the news for more than 30 years. Squeegee Kids. Tom's guest is Tisha Edwards, the executive director of Baltimore Mayor Jack Young’s new Office of Children and Family Success. Tisha Edwards’ office released a “Squeegee Alternative Plan” intended to eradicate the practice of “squeegeeing.” Tisha Edwards served as Chief of Staff under Mayor Catherine Pugh at the beginning of the Pugh Administration, and in 2013, she served as the interim CEO of the Baltimore City Public School System. Our conversation was streamed live on the WYPR Facebook page.

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

The acclaimed poet Stanley Plumly passed away in April of this year, succumbing to cancer at the age of 79. Mr. Plumly was a distinguished professor of English at the University of Maryland. He was the author of 11 volumes of poetry, many of which were also published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, and in 40 anthologies. He was a finalist for the National Book Award, he was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and he won the prestigious Pushcart Prize for Poetry eight times. Today on Midday, a tribute to Maryland’s former Poet Laureate (2009-2018) from three other poets who are also acclaimed in their own right and published widely. Grace Cavalieri is Mr. Plumly's successor as current Poet Laureate of Maryland. She has also been host for four decades of the ----The Poet and the Poem---- radio series, distributed nationally on the Pacifica Radio Network, and now also available as podcasts from the Library of Congress. Michael Collier also served as Maryland Poet Laureate from 2001-2004. He leads the Creative Writing program at the University of Maryland, College Park, and served as director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences from 1994 to 2017. Elizabeth Spires is the author of seven collections of poetry and six children’s books. She is a Professor of English at Goucher College where she holds the Chair for Distinguished Achievement.The University of Maryland in College Park will host a memorial service for Stanley Plumly at Memorial Chapel, on Saturday, September 21, at 7:30pm. Click here for details.

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

Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom in the studio today with another of her weekly reviews of the Maryland stage. Today, she spotlights playwright Heidi Schreck's What the Constitution Means to Me, a timely and provocative reflection on the personal impact of America's foundational document. Ms. Schreck, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony Award nominee and three-time Obie Award winner, has brought the Broadway production to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. for a 15-performance run. Oliver Butler directs the playwright in her starring role, along with original Broadway cast members Mike Iveson and New York City high school student Rosdely Ciprian.What the Constitution Means to Me continues at the Kennedy Center through Sunday, September 22.

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

Last Saturday's drone attack at one of the world's largest oil refineries in Saudi Arabia destroyed about 5% of the global oil supply. The Trump Administration and a lot of independent reporting has indicated that Iran is behind the attack, although Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have claimed responsibility. Senator Ben Cardin (D., MD) a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, joins Tom on the line from Capitol Hill to discuss the details of the attack, how it is fueling tensions in the Middle East, and how the U.S. ought to respond.

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

Today, a conversation with Diamont\u233\u Brown, the president of the Baltimore Teachers Union. She was first elected last spring in a close and contentious race to lead the 7,000-member union of teachers and school para-professionals. Her victory, which was officially certified in July after an investigation by the American Federation of Teachers, ended the long tenure of Marietta English, who was seeking her seventh 3-year term as BTU president.Ms. Brown ran at the top of a coalition called the Union We Deserve. She has pledged to improve accountability, engagement among union members, and to promote social justice.A former teacher at Booker T. Washington Middle School, Ms. Brown now leads a union of teachers and school para-professionals who are working with a shrinking population of students, in the context of a deep political divide among lawmakers over funding for schools throughout the state. She joins us in studio A to discuss the present state of the union, and the school system improvements its members are striving for.

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 with the presidents of colleges and universities in our region and across Maryland.Tom’s guest for the hour is the president of Towson University, Dr. Kim Schatzel.Towson University has seen a record increase in the number of minority students and first-generation college students in recent years. This month, for the first time, US News and World Report included Towson in its list of nationally ranked schools. We talk about this and more with Dr. Schatzel in Studio A.

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

Tom's guest is the South African born broadcaster and author Judith Krummeck. In the 1990s, she came to America after leaving the system of Apartheid in South Africa. Krummeck has written a book about that experience that also tells the story of her great-great grandmother, who herself was in immigrant from England, who came to South Africa with her missionary husband in the early nineteenth century. The book is called Old New Worlds: A Tale of Two Immigrants.

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

On today's News Wrap: the President of the United States does a drive by in Baltimore. The President of the Baltimore City Council joins the race for Mayor. And Democratic Presidential Wanna Be’s vie for position at an HBCU in Houston. Tom and Charles Robinson, Maryland Public Television Political reporter, run down the latest political news.

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