Midday

Today, our series of Conversations with the Candidates continues with the newest member of the Maryland congressional delegation, 7th District Congressman Kweisi Mfume. Rep. Mfume, who previously served five terms representing the 7th District from 1987-1996, before stepping down to head the NAACP until 2004, recently won back his old House seat in the April 28 special election held to fill the remaining term of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings.

Now, Rep. Mfume hopes to keep the seat for the next full term, and is campaigning for the Democratic primary election June 2 against a strong field. He joins Tom on the line from his home in Baltimore to discuss the campaign, and some of the urgent issues now before the House.

And this note about an event tonight featuring Wes Moore and Robyn Murphy. They are hosting a “Conversation with the Candidates” on Zoom at 6:30pm. They have invited Mayor Jack Young, City Council President Brandon Scott, former Mayor Sheila Dixon and former T Rowe Price Executive Mary Miller to discuss their campaigns for Mayor of Baltimore. To register, click here.

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Maryland House Speaker joins Tom to talk about her efforts to develop benchmarks for re-opening MD schools, and when that happens, ways to flatten the curve of access to technology.

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Former Baltimore Police Department spokesman T.J. Smith is one of six Democrats who are considered leaders in the race for Baltimore mayor.

This is Mr. Smith’s first run for political office. He is a former Anne Arundel County police lieutenant who joined the Baltimore Police Department in 2015, with the arrival of Commissioner Kevin Davis. Smith served as the BPD chief of communications until 2018. He then served as press secretary and communications adviser to Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Jr.

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Maryland Senator Jill P. Carter is Tom’s guest. She is one of the 19 Democrats running for Congress in Maryland's 7th District.

After 14 years in Maryland’s House of Delegates, Sen. Carter has represented the 41st District in the Senate for the last two years. Sen. Carter is the daughter of the late Baltimore civil rights activist, Walter P. Carter. A lawyer, she is 55 and lives in Hunting Ridge, in Southwest Baltimore.

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Maya Rockeymoore Cummings is a public policy consultant who holds a doctorate in political science. She’s the former head of the Maryland Democratic Party and she worked for several years on Capitol Hill. For a brief period, she was a candidate in the 2018 Maryland gubernatorial race. She left that race when her husband encountered some serious health problems.

Dr. Cummings placed 2nd behind Mr. Mfume in February, losing that primary by more than 25 points. The field of candidates in that race numbered two dozen. In this primary, that field has been whittled only slightly, to 19 candidates, all of whom also ran the last time

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State Senate President Bill Ferguson joins Tom to discuss how the legislature will move forward in light of the Governor’s vetoes of virtually all of the legislation passed in the abbreviated 2020 session that requires any additional state funding.

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Now, Midday takes a break from its coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tom welcome a best- selling author who has written a fascinating novel that takes place before COVID 19. Way before. The plot unfolds in first century Palestine and Egypt, in locales that are familiar to anyone with even the most minimal knowledge of Christianity and Judaism. It is peopled with figures whose imprint on biblical history is indisputable, and it includes a gutsy and intriguing turn of imagination.

In her new novel, The Book of Longings, Sue Monk Kidd imagines a marriage between Jesus and a gifted young woman named Ana. As Ana navigates the patriarchal and misogynist culture of the Biblical era, Ms. Kidd crafts a portrait of Jesus as a person, a delightful one at that, looking past his standing as a holy icon...

There have been those who have asserted historical evidence that proves Jesus was married. But in this gem of a novel, we are treated to a novelist’s fascinating and ambitious take on what it might have meant if Jesus had, in fact, been happily married...and how that might have changed the course of history for the political and religious rights of women.

Sue Monk Kidd joins us on the phone from her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

[The author invites readers to join her virtual book club during May for communal readings and discussions of The Book of Longings.]

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Mary Miller is one six Democrats considered leaders in the race for mayor. This is her first run for political office. After a long career at T Rowe Price, she was appointed by President Obama to top jobs at the Treasury Department. She was the first woman to serve as Under Secretary for Domestic Finance. For the last few years, she has been a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University 21st Century Cities Initiative.

A reminder that the primary is being conducted primarily by mail. If you are a registered voter, you should be receiving your ballot soon. Remember that the ballot has to be signed and postmarked by June 2. If you are not yet registered to vote, there’s still time. The deadline to register is May 27.

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The Holy Month of Ramadan is a time when Muslims around the world mark the Prophet Mohammad’s receiving of the first chapters of the Quran from Allah. It is a time of reflection, prayer, and celebration, but this year , the coronavirus pandemic has made observance of Ramadan exceptionally tough.

Dr. Faheem Younus is an infectious disease expert at the University of MD and member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

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More than half of Maryland’s COVID-19 fatalities have been nursing home residents - a population that's especially vulnerable to this virus. At least six nursing facilities in the state have each reported 100 or more cases of COVID-19. Clearly, we need to protect them and the nurses, doctors, aides, therapists and others coming to work each day in America’s nursing homes.

To that end, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan last month announced the establishment of statewide “strike teams” to support nursing home facilities now struggling to keep the coronavirus at bay. The teams are made up of members of the National Guard, representatives of local and state health departments and emergency medical clinicians, as well as doctors and nurses from local hospital systems. Dr. Matthew McNabney is a geriatrician at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the medical director of Hopkins ElderPlus, a voluntary preventive and long-term healthcare program for independent seniors. As a member of Hopkins' Go Teams, he has taken part in several of the state's strike team missions to assist local nursing facilities.

Dr. McNabney joins Tom on the line from his office at the Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore.

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