The Brian Lehrer Show

Stephen Nessen, transportation reporter for the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, talks about Mayor Mamdani's plan to repair the crumbling BQE.

Photo: View southwest along Interstate 278 (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) and the Brooklyn Heights Promenade from Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, June 2024 (Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

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Neil Gross, sociology professor at Colby College in Maine, and author of What Happened to College?: How Politics Broke Higher Education and What We Can Do to Fix It (Simon & Schuster, 2026), talks about his research into student attitudes toward politics and education and what's working to curb hyper-partisanship.

photo: At Columbia, the name "Alma Mater" refers to this statue in front of Low Library, and many legends are associated with it. The Low Library, in the dead center of the campus, is today not an academic library, but an administration building, 2011 (InSapphoWeTrust from Los Angeles, California, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

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Andy Kim, U.S. Senator (D-NJ), talks about his work in the Senate and the issues in New Jersey, including his plan for children's healthcare, the war in Iran, and the state of a local immigration facility. 

Photo: Senator Andy Kim (credit: U.S. Senate Photographic Studio)

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Three e-bikers died in hit-and-runs last week in New York City, marking the worst week so far this year for deadly bike accidents. Ben Furnas, executive director of the street safety advocacy group, Transportation Alternatives, discusses their campaign to protect riders and pedestrians from deadly accidents through a range of street safety initiatives. 

Photo: Delivery person scooter accident aftermath with Police and Ambulance on Yellowstone Boulevard, Queens, New York. (Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

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Roni Caryn Rabin, health reporter at The New York Times, talks about a new study showing greater numbers of Americans suffering from the effects of cannabis use, as access to, and dosages of, the drug grow.

Photo: Marijuana flowers bloom at a cannabis dispensary in Bangkok, Thailand, on August 18, 2026. (Matt Hunt/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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Ann Powers, NPR Music critic and correspondent, talks about the legacy of the country music artist Dolly Parton, and listeners call in to share their tiny eulogies, memories and favorite songs and facts about the late icon, who died this week.

Photo: Dolly Parton attends the opening of Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum's new exhibit 'Dolly Parton: Journey of a Seeker' at Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on May 19, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

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Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent, KFF Health News and host of the What the Health? podcast, talks about new CDC data showing kindergartner vaccine exemptions at a record high, and the bipartisan doubts about Dr. Heidi Overton, Trump's nominee to lead the FDA.

Photo: As eight-year-old girl receives a polio vaccine, she watches a closed circuit television broadcast (showing Dr Jonas Salk as he inoculates a boy) of a training telecast for physicians and scientists, New York, New York, April 12, 1955. (PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

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Chronic flooding in Northeast Queens has prompted many residents to leave their neighborhoods altogether. Queens Borough President Donovan Richards discusses what the city is doing to bolster the sewage system and institute safety measures during floods, and unpacks the city's new potential plan to offer buyouts to homeowners in the hardest-hit neighborhoods.

Photo: A flooded intersection in Queens (Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency)

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Jill Lepore, professor of American History at Harvard University, staff writer at The New Yorker, and the author of several books, including The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State (Liveright, 2026), talks about our reliance on data and algorithms and what it means for society and government.

Image: Composite image of Capital Building with binary numbers (TGI/Tetra Images via Getty Creative)

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Yeganeh Torbati, the Iran correspondent for The New York Times based in Istanbul and co-author (with Bozorgmehr Sharafedin) of Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran (Doubleday, 2026), reports on the latest developments in the Iran war as the cease-fire expires and Pres. Trump threatens an "economic D-Day."

Photo: Currency exchange office is seen as daily life continues amid persistent tensions between Iran and the United States in the Iranian capital Tehran, on August 24, 2026. US President Donald Trump said he had announced an unprecedented economic D-Day operations targeting Iran and threatened countries supporting the Tehran administration with severe economic consequences. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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