The Brian Lehrer Show

Caroline Lewis, health care reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, and Joe Hong, investigative data reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, talk about the ongoing Legionnaires' outbreak in Central Harlem, why New York is a hot spot for the disease, and why city inspections of cooling towers were at a low point ahead of the outbreak.

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After many delays and negotiations, most of President Donald Trump's tariffs went into effect last Thursday, August 7th. Eric Levitz, senior correspondent at Vox, break down the latest news —  including why Trump’s tariffs, no matter how tough they might be on American pocketbooks, might be very hard to reverse.

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Tad Friend, a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of In the Early Times: A Life Reframed (Crown, 2022), talks about his article "How to Live Forever and Get Rich Doing It" about researchers selling the idea of defeating death. 

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Arun Venugopal, senior reporter for WNYC's race & justice unit, shares his reporting on how the tourism industry in NYC is suffering because of President Trump's tariffs and other policies.

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Martha Barnette, co-host of the radio show and podcast A Way with Words and author of Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland (Harry N. Abrams, 2025), shares some fascinating stories of where words like "spam" and "cocktail."

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Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.

Robert Reich's Critique of Fellow Boomers  (First) | What to Know About the Eating Disorder ARFID (Starts at :33) | The Gen Z Intimacy Recession (Starts at :52)

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For this "Summer Friday" we've put together some of our favorite conversations this year:

• 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), looks at where the initial actions of the Trump administration align with the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, and what's still to come.
• From our centennial series, Deb Whitcraft, founder and president of the New Jersey Maritime Museum, and Emil Salvini, author of several books on the history of the Jersey Shore and host of "Tales of the Jersey Shore" for NJTV, take us through the larger history as listeners share their memories and stories from the towns and beaches that fit under that giant umbrella of "the shore".
• Young men broke heavily for Trump in November. Andrew Marantz, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation (Viking Press, 2019),discusses the reason behind this phenomenon and how the left might make gains in this demographic.
• From our centennial series, Tina Jordan, deputy editor of The New York Times Book Review, and a co-editor of The New York Times Book Review: 125 Years of Literary History (Clarkson Potter, 2021), looks at the history of best-selling books and what that says about the past century of American culture.

These interviews were lightly edited for time and clarity and the original web versions are available here:

Catching Up on Project 2025 (Apr 25, 2025)

100 Years of 100 Things: The Jersey Shore (Aug 12, 2024)

How the Left Can Connect with Young Men (Mar 28, 2025)

100 Years of 100 Things: Best Sellers (May 21, 2025)

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The animal shelters in New York are full. There are feral cat colonies around the city. So what do we do? Will Zweigart, executive director of Flatbush Cats, a nonprofit cat rescue group, explains how we got to this point and makes some suggestions for what New York can do about all the cats.

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Carter Sherman, author of The Second Coming: Sex and the Next Generation's Fight Over Its Future (Gallery Books, 2025), and a reproductive health and justice journalist at the Guardian, talks about the decline in sex and intimacy among young people and what role the internet and hookup culture have played in shaping a generation's new cultural mores.

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Amy Nofziger, director of victim support at AARP's Fraud Watch Network, discusses the latest trends on how scammers are tricking people into giving them money and personal information and brings tips on how to avoid scams.

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