Today on Boston Public Radio: Chuck Todd updated us on the latest political headlines, focusing on upcoming midterm elections and America’s worsening political divide. Todd moderates “Meet the Press,” and co-hosts “Meet the Press Now” on NBC Now. We then opened up phone lines, asking listeners about what’s on their minds ahead of the midterm elections. Art Caplan weighed in on whether it’s time to declare pandemic amnesty. Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine in New York City. Dr. Kimberly Parker discussed the potential impact of the Supreme Court hearing on cases regarding affirmative action. Parker is a former teacher and authority on all things education. Currently, she directs the Crimson Summer Academy at Harvard. She was formerly president of the Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts. Her latest book is "Literacy is Liberation: Working Towards Justice Through Culturally Relevant Teaching.” Corby Kummer remembered the lives of food writers Julie Powell, the blogger behind “The Julie/Julia Project,” which served as the inspiration for Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia” movie, and Gael Greene, restaurant critic and founder of Citymeals on Wheels. Kummer is executive director of the Food and Society policy program at the Aspen Institute, a senior editor at The Atlantic and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Jon Gruber explained how the Federal Reserve could fight inflation by raising interest rates – and the implications of doing so. Gruber is the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT. His latest book is “Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream.” We ended the show by talking about a decrease in worker productivity, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.