Midday

By WYPR 88.1 FM BaltimoreSociety & Culture News

Midday episodes

May 01, 2025 Honoring 40 years of Maryland's Fallen Heroes Day
The 40th Annual Fallen Heroes Day ceremony will take place at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Baltimore County tomorrow. This event honors Maryland's first responders who have died in the line of duty.
Mike Dunn, a retired Senior Officer with the Maryland Transportation Authority Police and Tom Kimbel, former Baltimore County Fire Department Battalion Chief, join Midday to express the significance of this event.
10 min
May 01, 202550 years later, Baltimore Sun reporter recalls covering the final days of Vietnam War
Skip Isaacs wrote about his reflections in the final days of the war.
14 min
May 01, 2025 Midday with the Mayor: The city's anti-violence work faces federal cuts. Plus, a wage bump for tipped workers?
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott joins Tom to talk about issues in the city.
We ask about federal cuts which may impact the mayor's anti-violence initiatives, and new parking rules in the popular Fells Point neighborhood.
An during his State of the City address, Mayor Brandon M. Scott announced the launch of the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Culture, and Entertainment (MOACE.) The office is tasked with organizing Baltimore’s live events, creative workforce and nightlife.
24 min
April 30, 2025 The little-known history of selfless educators who helped drive the civil rights movement
Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement tells the moving story of the civil rights activists who offered “citizenship classes” to African Americans throughout the South from 1955-1970.
Author Elaine Weiss joins Midday to discuss the work, her third of narrative history. Weiss wrote about the Woman’s Land Army of World War I in Fruits of Victory and the women's suffrage movement in The Woman’s Hour.
The story centers around Septima Clark, whom Martin Luither King, Jr. called “the mother of the movement,” and three others who worked tirelessly and at great personal cost to develop a system of secret schools. Esau Jenkins, Bernice Robinson, and a white activist, Myles Horton are not household names of the civil rights movement, but this book makes the compelling case for their underappreciated influence.
49 min
April 29, 2025Head of Baltimore City schools faces federal budget cuts, cyber breach as she enters final year
For more reporting on the impact of budget cuts, check out WYPR education reporter Bri Hatch's story on Baltimore after-school program expanding to absorb students left behind by federal cuts.
49 min
April 28, 2025 Martin O'Malley on Social Security staff cuts, and what they mean for the benefits millions rely on
Baltimore is the birthplace of one of America’s largest and most popular public programs. The Social Security Administration issued its first Social Security numbers in the 1930s from the Candler Building in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
The main office of Social Security is in Woodlawn, in Baltimore County. Reporting suggests growing chaos there with new policy and staffing changes rolled out by the Trump administration.
Former Gov. Martin O’Malley led the Social Security Administration for about a year at the end of the Joe Biden presidency. O'Malley joins Midday to discuss staffing cuts and other problems at the agency, and how the result could be significant interruptions in service and benefits.
27 min
April 28, 2025 Will nuclear reactors and offshore wind turbines power Maryland's clean energy future?
Ambitious climate goals set by state officials mean Maryland needs to find new, carbon-neutral sources of energy. The state generated more solar energy in 2023 alone than all solar generation in the state before 2017, combined.
If Maryland wants to meet its environmental deadlines, and power a more sustainable society, it’ll need to consider new sources of energy.
Timothy Fox is managing director at Clearview Energy Partners, a non-partisan organization that analyses the energy sector for corporate clients and investors. Fox joins Midday to discuss the potential new energy sources, and how lawmakers are attempting to balance sustainability goals and power demand.
22 min
April 25, 202510 years after Freddie Gray uprising, has police reform and community investment brought change to Baltimore?
Midday's panel is:
Ashiah Parker, Executive Director of the No Boundaries Coalition
Bishop Donte Hickman, Pastor of Southern Baptist Church
Evan Shea, Deputy Monitor of the Baltimore Police Monitoring Team, which oversaw implementation of the consent decree.
49 min
April 24, 2025 Sing along to Beethoven's 9th Symphony this weekend
This weekend the Baltimore Choral Arts Society will host a community Come-And-Sing of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Singers from far and wide will practice and then conduct a masterclass performance at the Peabody Institute.
Anthony Blake Clark, the Music Director of the organization, joins Midday to discuss their latest slate of performances and events.
22 min
April 24, 2025The Rousuck Review: 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' at ArtsCentric
This week, Rousuck reviews Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at ArtsCentric. The production runs through April 27.
11 min

About Midday

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Monday-Friday from noon-1:00, Tom Hall and his guests are talking about what's on your mind, and what matters most to Marylanders, the latest news, local and national politics, education and the…