Democrats in Washington are vowing to press ahead with a possible vote this week on President Joe Biden’s scaled-down Build Back Better package, now carrying a $1.75 trillion price tag. It comes after West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin said Monday it’s time to vote on the infrastructure bill instead, which was seen as a signal that the key moderate is wavering on the larger package. One person who has been speaking regularly with Manchin is New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who joined us to talk about the White House’s priority bill and more.

Tuesday’s elections mainly come down to local races and statewide initiatives in the Northeast. One exception is New Jersey, where Democratic Governor Phil Murphy is running for a second term. His Republican opponent is Jack Ciatterelli, a former member of the General Assembly. For analysis, we speak with Nancy Solomon, managing editor of New Jersey Public Radio. She has covered the Garden State for 20 years.

Voters in Holyoke, Massachusetts will elect the city’s first new mayor in a decade this year. The two candidates on the ballot for mayor are Joshua Garcia, who is currently administrator in the town of Blandford, and Michael Sullivan, a six-term at-large City Councilor in Holyoke. Our Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill recently interviewed both.

When New Yorkers cast ballots this fall, there will be more at stake than local races for mayor and supervisor. Several constitutional amendments are on the ballot this year. Two concern voting itself: same-day registration, and no-excuse absentee ballots. The third would alter the state’s redistricting process. To help break down the questions, we spoke with Albany Law School Government Law Center Legal Director Richard Rifkin.

We remember the life and legacy of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking with retired Army Colonel and Congressman Chris Gibson, who knew Powell personally and now serves as Siena College president, and Washington Post opinion columnist Henry Olsen.

We sit down for an extended conversation with Berkshire County D.A. Andrea Harrington. Three years into her tenure, the Democrat from Western Massachusetts talks about her first term and shares previously unreleased internal data as next year’s election approaches.

In July, the FBI named Janeen DiGuiseppi as the special agent in charge of an office that has cycled through five other leaders since 2017. Thomas Relford stepped down from the post in May, having taken over following the resignation of James Hendricks. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General found Hendricks sexually harassed eight female subordinates. We sat down with DiGuiseppi to discuss the office’s past and why she wanted to take on the post that oversees some 200 staffers covering 32 counties in New York as well as Vermont.

We profile an amazing life – that of 96-year-old retired SUNY Plattsburgh Professor Vladimir Munk. The new documentary “Return To Auschwitz” is the story of Munk’s survival of the Nazi death camp. The documentary details the experiences of Munk as he returned to the concentration camp in early 2020. On this episode, a feature story about the film and extended interviews with Munk and the filmmakers.

We bid farewell to Dr. Steven Leibo of the Sage Colleges, who has been a regular observer of world politics, the climate and American democracy for WAMC for some 25 years. Steve is about to become a commentator emeritus.

In New York’s 19th Congressional district, second-term Democrat Antonio Delgado just got a high-profile challenger: Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, the 2018 GOP nominee for governor. For analysis of the race and how it could impact the national picture, we speak with Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.