Kids in New York City can get a free lunch once school's out for the summer but most of meals are left on the table. Founder of the New York City School Healthy Food Alliance and journalist who covers food issues, Andrea Strong, talks about needed improvements to the city's summer meal program and children what we can do to better food equity. 
 
 

Is NYC's Summer Free Lunch Program Working?

Newsmakers meet New Yorkers as host Brian Lehrer and his guests take on the issues dominating conversation in New York and around the world. This daily program from WNYC Studios cuts through the usual talk radio punditry and brings a smart, humane approach to the day's events and what matters most in local and national politics, our own communities and our lives.  WNYC Studios is a listener-supported producer of other leading podcasts including Radiolab, On the Media, Death, Sex & Money, Nancy, and many others.

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Nicholas Kristof, opinion columnist for The New York Times and author of several books, including the forthcoming memoir Chasing Hope (Penguin Random House, 2024), shares his critique of how he says President Biden has mishandled the United States' role in Israel's war in Gaza, what he sees as Biden's reasoning, the political implications and what the United States could do moving forward to end the war.

A Harsh Critique of President Biden on Gaza

For National Poetry Month, we open up the phones for listeners to recite lines from their favorite poems.

A National Poetry Month Open-Mic

Listeners call in to share an honest assessment of the single-use plastics in their lives and Judith Enck, founder of Beyond Plastics, professor at Bennington College and former EPA Region 2 administrator, rides along to share tips and trick on how to reduce plastic use.

A #PlasticsChallenge Wrap Up

Claire Thornton, USA Today breaking news reporter, talks about the calls by pro-Palestinian student protesters for their colleges and universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Explaining the Demand to 'Divest'

In honor of National Arab American Heritage Month, Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a non-profit, nonpartisan, national civil rights advocacy organization, comes back on the show to tick through the long timeline of Arab-American immigration (and migration around the country), which shows the diversity of the community and where they landed throughout the country.

Is NYC's Summer Free Lunch Program Working?

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