Midday

In 2009, Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for her wonderful novel about a famously cantankerous and compelling character, Olive Kitteridge. Since then, in books like The Burgess Boys and My Name is Lucy Barton, Strout introduced readers to more of her engaging, vivacious characters.

And with her latest book, published last month, Strout brings all of these characters together. Tell Me Everything is a quiet, masterful, beautiful peroration on love and loyalty that doesn’t shy away from life’s big questions. Strout joins us to talk about her compelling and complicated characters.

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Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott joins host Tom Hall for Midday with the Mayor, an ongoing interview series with the chief executive of Charm City.

We ask him about the latest on financial trouble at the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts, and Baltimore voters deciding the future of the Inner Harbor.

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On another installment of our series of Conversations with the Candidates, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks joins Midday. She is the Democratic nominee running to succeed Ben Cardin in the U.S. Senate.

With a thin majority for Democrats in the Senate, Democrats are facing an uphill battle to retain a majority. Tight races in Ohio, Montana and other states elevate Maryland to prominent position in the fight for control of the Senate.

County Executive Alsobrooks leads Prince George’s, Maryland’s second largest county. She is the first Black woman in the state to lead any county, and, if elected, she will be the first woman to serve in Maryland's congressional delegation since Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Donna Edwards left office in 2017. Alsobrooks would also become only the third African American woman to be a senator in United States history.

We have sent repeated invitations to Alsobrook's Republican opponent, former Gov. Larry Hogan, to join Midday. An official with the Larry Hogan campaign did not return a request for the former governor's availability. The invitation remains open.

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Baltimore City voters are set to have a say on the future of Harborplace by voting "yes" or "no" on Question F, which asks voters if they want to make amends to the city charter regarding the public park area at the Inner Harbor.

Specifically, Question F asks if voters would allow multi-family housing and off-street parking in the space. Additionally, it asks if they would expand the area for development to 4.5 acres up from the current 3.2 acres, essentially taking McKeldin Plaza into Harborplace.

Voting for the amendment will allow David Bramble and MCB Estate to move forward with their plans, which include building 900 apartments on the site of the Light Street Pavilion. Voting against Question F will send the designers back to the drawing board.

We speak to Anirban Basu of The Innber Harbor Coalition, an opponent of Question F, and Jon Laria of the Campaign for Question F, who is a proponent of the ballot question.

Earlier this week, Midday discussed another potentially consequential amendment on the ballot. Question H gives city voters the choice to shrink the size of the city council.

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Today, reflections on the war in the Middle East from an American physician who spent a month at a hospital in Gaza, and a Marylander who grew up in Ramallah, on the West Bank.

Dr. Victoria Aveson is a surgeon from New York, who went to Gaza under the auspices of Humanity Auxilium, a nonprofit that sends volunteers to help in areas ravaged by wars and natural disasters. She worked at the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza. On Monday, just a few days after Dr. Aveson returned to the United States, Israeli defense forces bombed the grounds of the hospital, killing four people, and injuring many others.

Aveson shares what she saw from inside one of the last medical centers standing in the Gaza Strip.

Then, Dr. Ramsey Hanhan is an Palestinian American author who lives in Howard County. He retired from his career as a university professor of physics to concentrate on writing. In 2022, he wrote a literary memoir called Fugitive Dreams: Chronicles of Occupation and Resistance. He also maintains a blog on Medium where he writes about the Palestinian experience.

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Today we have our weekly review from Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck. This week she explores Babbitt starring two-time Tony award winner Matthew Broderick. 

The play is a stage adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s politically satirical critique of the American dream.

Babbitt runs through November 3 at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington.

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Baltimore City's charter is a foundational document dictating how the city is run, similar to how the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution sets the responsibilities and limits of the federal government.

And like the U.S. Constitution, the city charter is not easy to amend. Amendments need to be voted on and receive majority support at the polls to pass.

This year, voters in Baltimore City are set to consider several charter amendments. Midday is taking a deep dive into these important ballot questions.

Question H, if passed, would reduce the size of the City Council from 14 district seats to eight. Proponents say with Baltimore shrinking, the city council should shrink, too. Opponents of Question H, including Mayor Brandon Scott, argue a small city council would be more easily influenced by lobbyist and political action committees (PACs).

We discuss the question at hand with Dayvon Love, Director of Public Policy for Leaders of Beautiful Struggle, and Jovani Paterson, Chairman of The People for Elected Accountability and Civic Engagement (PEACE).

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John Grisham's name is a common sight on book store shelves and the annual lists of best-selling works. His gripping thrillers, including A Time for Mercy and The Runaway Jury, are known across the world.

In 2006, Grisham published The Innocent Man, a nonfiction work chronicling the story of Ron Williamson, who wrongly convicted, sentenced to death row and eventually exonerated.

Grisham’s latest book is his second of nonfiction. Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions chronicles the cases of ten people who have been wrongly convicted and the strenuous efforts taken in the attempt to secure their freedom.

The book is coauthored by Jim McCloskey, a longtime advocate for the wrongly-convicted and founder of Centurion Ministries. Grisham serves on the board of Centurion.

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Millions of people around the country have already cast a ballot in this year’s election. With competitive races for President and for U.S. Senate, Maryland voters are expected to turnout in high numbers.

The 2020 election, which put President Joe Biden into office, saw 66% participation. Two years later, in the 2022 midterms, only 46% of eligible voters cast ballots.

But besides low turnout, recent election suffered from a lack of poll workers. And with early voting in Maryland beginning in 10 days, election officials are continuing to call for more residents to get involved in the election process.

Marylanders working to ensure a secure and fair election join Midday today. They are organizing to get as many people as possible to cast votes, and they are getting young people involved in the electoral process.

Jared DeMarinis is Maryland’s State Administrator of Elections. We ask him about overseeing the state's election at a time of heightened paranoia and fearmongering around electoral integrity.

Then, we talk to Sam Novey, Co-Founder of Baltimore Votes Coalition. He is working to get more people involved in the election process, including young people. High school students Aleni Lila and James McLaughlin are new election judges participating in the upcoming election.

Maryland residents can register to vote at the polls during early voting and on Election Day.

The deadline to register to vote online is Oct. 15 by 11:59 p.m. By mail, registration must be postmarked by 5:00 p.m. local time on Oct. 15.

Early voting starts on Oct. 24 and runs through Oct 31, where voters can cast their ballots at any specified early voting center in their county. The final day for voters to cast their ballots in-person is on Election Day, Nov 5.

You can find more information at the State Board of Election website, vote.md.gov.

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

Kim Klacik speaks to Midday about her run for U.S. Congress in another edition of Conversations with the Candidates. She is the Republican candidate to represent the second congressional district in the House of Representatives. Her opponent in the race is Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Jr.

Klacik ran for Congress in 2020 in the seventh district, a seat held by Democratic congressman Kweisi Mfume.

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