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Brian Lehrer leads the conversation about what matters most now in local and national politics, our own communities and our lives.
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Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.
Christiane Amanpour on the War With Iran (First) | A $30 Hourly Minimum for NYC? (Starts at 33:07) | Oscar Talk: Streaming vs Theaters (Starts at 1:08:02 )
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Photo: A general view of Tehran with smoke visible in the distance after explosions were reported in the city, on March 02, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)
Burgess Everett, congressional bureau chief for Semafor, talks about the latest news out of Congress this week, including a bipartisan housing bill that passed the Senate, the stalemate over DHS funding, the president's push for the SAVE Act and more.
Photo: US aviation faces a crisis due to a Department of Homeland Security partial government shutdown, leading to Transportation Security Administration staffing shortages. (Photo by Marcin Golba/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Each house in the New York State legislature released its budget proposal, and both called for raising taxes on wealthy New Yorkers. Jimmy Vielkind, New York State Issues reporter for WNYC, reports on how that will affect negotiations, since Governor Hochul is firmly against a tax hike, and other issues in the assembly's and senate's proposals.
Photo: Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, left, and Speaker Carl Heastie, center, meet with Gov. Kathy Hochul, right, following a presentation of Gov. Hochul's executive budget proposal on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images).
On this Friday the 13th, listeners call in to share their superstitions, including ones that they don't really believe in but observe anyway.
Photo: November morning in Stegna at the Levantine Sea, cat a the old storehouse of the fishermen (Archangelos, Rhodes, Greece). (Manfred Werner (Tsui), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Sandy Nurse, City Council member (D-37, Cypress Hills, Bushwick, City Line, Ocean Hill, Brownsville, East New York), talks about her proposal for legislation that would increase New York City's minimum wage from the current $17 per hour to $30 per hour by 2030.
Photo: Lidia Vilorio, a home health aide, gives her patient Martina Negron her medicine and crackers for her tea on May 05, 2021 (Credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Belinda Miles, PhD; president of SUNY Westchester Community College, talks about how Westchester Community College is dealing with funding cuts from the Trump administration, and how they will affect college access for low-income students, and employers and the workforce.
Photo from Wikimedia Creative Commons: The Gateway Building on the campus of Westchester Community College in Valhalla, New York.
David Graham, staff writer at The Atlantic and an author of The Atlantic daily newsletter, plus author of The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2025), offers analysis of how President Trump is changing the way he describes the status of the war with Iran, and why his public statements about it have shifted around so dramatically. Plus, Mohammed Sergie, editor of Semafor Gulf, talks about how the war has affected the Gulf states.Photo: Donald Trump at a United Nations event on Religious Freedom Monday, Sept. 23, 2019, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. (Photo: Shealah Craighead / White House)
Kate Tellers, storyteller, host and director of MothWorks, talks about The Moth's upcoming event with the theme "what are we fighting for?"
Photo: Matthew Mercier takes part in The Moth true personal storytelling show live-streamed from St. Ann's Church on April 21, 2021 in Brooklyn. (Credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
The Independent Budget Office led testimonies as the City Council begins reviewing the mayor's preliminary budget. Louisa Chafee, director of the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO), a non-partisan source of information on the budget and economy, gives their assessment of the assumptions underlying the budget and the mayor's plan to close the deficit.
Photo: The Committee on Finance Holds Preliminary Budget Hearing For FY2027 with testimony from the Independent Budget Office, March 10, 2026 (Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit)
Dana Stevens, film critic at Slate.com, co-host of the Slate Culture Gabfest podcast and the author of Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century (Atria Books, 2022), weighs in on Timothée Chalamet's comments about the importance of movie-going vs streaming for the future of the industry, plus the social/political meaning of two of the best picture frontrunners.
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images: Timothée Chalamet speaks during the Valentine's Day weekend special screening of "Call Me By Your Name", hosted by Cinespia, at Los Angeles Theatre on February 13, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Of the nearly 3.8 million 911 calls routed to the NYPD in 2025, only about a quarter were reporting a crime in progress and more than 500,000 involved “harassment, verbal conflicts, or disputes between two or more parties.” This comes from a new analysis by the Vera Institute of Justice. Daniela Gilbert, who directs the Vera Institute Redefining Public Safety initiative and served on the Mamdani administration’s Community Safety transition team, talks about the analysis and argues that many of these calls could potentially be handled by alternative responders. Photo: Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at Gracie Mansion with New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch on March 9, 2026. Source: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
John Leland, New York Times reporter and the author of Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old (Sarah Crichton Books, 2018), offers some background information about the two men arrested after bringing homemade bombs to the Gracie Mansion protest.
Photo: View of an unexploded homemade explosive device in front of Gracie Mansion, New York mayor Zohran Mamdani's official residence, in New York on March 7, 2026. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images)
John Cassidy, staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI (Macmillan, 2025) talks about his recent story, "How to Prevent Insider Trading on Trump’s Wars" and other recent takes on economics and politics.photo: Karoline Leavitt at her first Press Conference in 2025 (YouTube channel called White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Siddhartha Sánchez, executive director of the Bronx River Alliance, and CP, local resident and member of the group Mothers on the Move, talk about why they are against state-led plans to repair and widen the Cross Bronx Expressway, the Robert Moses-designed highway that has harmed residents' health for decades, and what they propose the state does instead.
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images: Cars and trucks move to enter the Cross Bronx Expressway, a notorious stretch of highway in New York City that is often choked with traffic and contributes to pollution and poor air quality on November 16, 2021 in New York City.
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, talks about the work that Amnesty International does to advance the rights of women and girls worldwide, including in Afghanistan, Malawi, Gaza, China, Iran and more.
(Photo by STAN HONDA / AFP) (Photo by STAN HONDA/AFP via Getty Images)
Pat Kiernan and Jamie Stelter hosts of the Spectrum News NY1 show "Mornings on 1" and the new digital show 'Morning People', talk about their new show, plus some of the local news they've got their eyes on.
photo: Likely view from upper floors of the Time Warner Center in Manhattan, looking east (sookie from Vancouver, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Christiane Amanpour, chief international anchor and host of CNN's "Amanpour" and PBS' "Amanpour & Company," talks about the latest news on the war with Iran.
Photo: Women members of Iran's Red Crescent society stand near smoke plumes from an ongoing fire following an overnight airstrike on the Shahran oil refinery in northwestern Tehran on March 8, 2026. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
Last month, Mayor Zohran Mamdani went to Washington to pitch President Donald Trump on providing federal funds to build a huge housing development on top of Sunnyside Yard. David Brand, housing reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, discusses what Queens politicians and residents think about the idea, and how sentiment on the plan has changed since former Mayor de Blasio first floated the idea.
Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images: Subway trains of New Jersey Transit Rail Operations, which operates in New Jersey, are seen in the Sunnyside railroad yard in the Queens borough of New York on February 27, 2024.
Listeners weigh in on whether they'd prefer to stay on daylight saving time, or standard time permanently, or whether they are fine with the status quo of changing the clocks. Plus, they talk about how the time change affects them personally.
(Photo By Jesus Hellin/Europa Press via Getty Images)
Writer Craig Welch talks about his New York Times Magazine feature, "Why Are So Many Teen Girls Still Tearing Their A.C.L.s?" and ways to reduce the risk of this particular injury.
Photo: Two New Jersey high school girls' soccer teams play out a competitive match. Credit: K.M. Klemencic/Wikimedia Commons
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Teachers and healthcare workers have some of the highest resignations, cause it's impossible for them to work remote or improve their work/life balance. Those industries need to offer something, like a standard 4-day work week or much higher wages!
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Are we a country of norms instead of laws, or are we a country where politicians avoid enacting laws that could conceivably be used against them and their colleagues? (Senators can trade stocks using insider information?!? The 45th prez might not face the music RE kids in cages because "we need to move on"?!?!?) Thank you, Brian & Co., for this segment that's most worthy of contemplation.
Sharon Lee literally said nothing useful. When asked how to get people to stop congregating in parks she responded talking about healthcare workers are doing well wearing masks. When asked about a possible rent forgiveness she dodged it and talked about ordering masks 2 weeks from now would be different than 2 weeks ago (no shit). BK pres sounded great speaking about educating communities and a soft approach to avoid coming off as a police state. Queens Pres should not have even answered the phone. Telling everyone everywhere that they should all wear masks. Jesus Christ lady get it together.
hey Brian, love the show. to this guest, a newborn baby in the UK had been found to have the virus.
They talk about the BQE, not the BQX.