The Brian Lehrer Show

Two so-called "buffer zone" bills passed the New York City council last month, and lawmakers in Albany have similar proposals on the table, too. Jimmy Vielkind, New York State Issues reporter for WNYC, talks about whether the bills, which would require a buffer zone for protesters outside houses of worship and health care facilities, will make it into the state budget, and Sahalie Donaldson, City Hall reporter at City & State New York reports on the bills' status in New York City, plus they both discuss the disagreements between Democrats over the issue. Photo: New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin delivers remarks on Jan. 21, 2026. (Credit: Gerardo Romo/NYC Council Media Unit)

With over fifty days into the U.S.-Iran war, the world has lost 550 million barrels of Gulf crude oil. Matthieu Favas, commodities editor at The Economist, explains how this is impacting global energy markets in European and Asian countries that rely on that supply. Photo: Coryton Oil Refinery by Colin Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0

Dan Lambe, CEO of the Arbor Day Foundation, and Ben Osborne, assistant commissioner of forestry and horticulture at NYC Parks, talk about Arbor Day and NYC's new Urban Forest Plan for expanding the tree canopy. Photo: Blossoming trees by the road in Prospect Park (Taty Sena, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Michael Valdovinos, a clinical psychologist, veteran, trauma expert and the author of Moral Injuries: When Good Conscience Suffers in a World of Hurt (Harper, 2026), talks about recognizing and healing "moral injuries" that occur not from physical trauma, but from acts that violate the conscience. Photo: A United States Marine Corps rifleman completes a field exercise in Finland. (Credit: Sgt. Mason Roy/U.S. Marine Corps via Wikimedia Commons)

A new report finds that New York City is losing population across income levels, and subsequently schools are losing students. Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, shares his group's recommendations for how to stem the tide of people leaving. Photo: ThibautRe, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

In honor of World Book Day, National Library Week and the nation's upcoming 250th anniversary, librarians from Brooklyn Public Library have put together a list of 250 books that have been important to the United States. Linda Johnson, CEO and president of Brooklyn Public Library, talks about some of the books on the list and why librarians chose them. Photo: Rare books at the Brooklyn Library Central Branch. Credit: MMHAD via Wikimedia Commons.

Jamelle Bouie, opinion columnist for The New York Times and guest judge for the Hillman Prize, talks about the Hillman Prize, plus some of his recent columns, which are about national politics with an eye toward history and Michelle Adams, professor of law at the University of Michigan, former member of the Biden administration’s Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court, Hillman Prize winner and the author of The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North (Macmillan, 2025), talks about her Hillman Prize-winning book and work. photo: Photograph of Downtown Detroit taken from over the Detroit River between Windsor, Ontario, Canada and Detroit's riverfront, November 2021(Lrgjr72, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker has become a litmus test for Democrats after a campaign appearance with Michigan senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Jonathan Cowan, co-founder and president of the centrist think tank Third Way, and Daniel Denvir, journalist, host of the Jacobin podcast The Dig, and author of All-American Nativism (Verso Books, 2020), address Piker's statements and debate whether or not politicians should interact with him, and more broadly, if he belongs in the Democratic coalition. Photo: Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, addressed his supporters after the historic mayoral election victory on Tuesday night, November 4, 2025, in New York City, United States. Famous online streamer Hasan Piker attends Mamdani's election watch party (by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images).

Fred Kaplan, Slate's War Stories columnist and the author of many nonfiction books and his latest, a novel, A Capital Calamity (Miniver Press, 2024), talks about Iran's military capabilities even as President Trump extended the ceasefire, plus offers his analysis of President Trump's unconventional negotiating tactics. Photo: A man reads a newspaper with a front page article referring to anticipated US-Iran peace talks, at a stall in Islamabad on April 22, 2026. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked US President Donald Trump for extending a ceasefire with Iran and indefinitely pushing back the end of the two week truce, with Tehran silent on the decision early on April 22. (by Asif HASSAN / AFP via Getty Images)

Jackie Faherty, astrophysicist and science educator at the American Museum of Natural History, gives an astrophysicist's view of Earth Day. Photo: In this handout image provided by NASA, a view of Earth taken by NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman from the Orion spacecraft's window after completing the translunar injection burn on April 2, 2026. (Photo by Reid Wiseman/NASA via Getty Images)

Jodi Kantor, New York Times investigative reporter, co-author of She Said (Penguin, 2019) and author of How to Start: Discovering Your Life's Work (Hachette, 2026), expands on her Columbia University commencement address where she tried to answer the question: “How, in this environment, is anyone supposed to find and start their life’s work?” Photo: Cover art for How to Start: Discovering Your Life's Work. (Credit: Hachette)

On Earth Day, Lisa Friedman, reporter covering climate policy and politics at The New York Times, talks about her reporting on how EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has drastically changed the mission of the EPA, and more related environmental and climate news. Photo: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is shown during CERAWeek by S&P Global in Houston Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

Abigail Savitch-Lew, a former staff reporter for City Limits and now the author of the novel Livonia Chow Mein (Simon & Schuster, 2026), talks about her novel about inter-generational and cross-cultural conflict and community in Brooklyn. Photo: Cover art for Livonia Chow Mein. (Credit: Simon & Schuster)

Brigid Bergin, WNYC's senior political correspondent, recaps her event with Mayor Mamdani, where they talked about the lessons he has taken from Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, and other news from his first 100+ days in office. Photo: Mayor Zohran Mamdani appears live at a WNYC forum entitled “Mamdani's First 100 Days: Lessons from La Guardia" on April 20, 2026. (Credit: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Frederick S. Barrett, director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and professor in the Neuropsychopharmacology of Consciousness in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, talks about the use of psychedelics for mental illness and the effects of President Trump's executive order speeding up research. Photo: Tabernanthe iboga, a shrub with hallucinogenic properties, grows in Cameroon. (Credit: Marco Schmidt via Wikimedia Commons CC 2.5)

It's National Library Week, and today we're asking library workers (and patrons) to talk about the services their libraries provide. Photo: The Brooklyn Public Library. Credit: Rhododendrites via Wikimedia Commons.

Elizabeth Alexander, president of The Mellon Foundation, poet, educator, memoirist and scholar and the author of The Trayvon Generation (Grand Central Publishing, 2022), talks about the latest cohort of the Mellon Foundation's (in partnership with the Jazz Foundation of America) jazz legacies fellows, and the importance of the genre. Also in this segment, saxophonist Gary Bartz reflects on his long career in jazz. Photo: An alto saxophone. (Credit: Rama via Wikimedia Commons CC 2.0)

NYC Comptroller Mark Levine talks about his plan to invest $4 billion from NYC's pension funds into affordable housing developments in the city, plus weighs in on the budget and other city news. Photo: NYC Comptroller Mark Levine. (Credit: New York City Comptroller's Office)

David Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, talks about early indications for the upcoming midterm elections. Photo: An Oklahoma midterm ballot from 2018. (Credit: Okcgunner via Wikimedia Commons CC 4.0)

Michael Sol Warren, New Jersey reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, recaps last week's Ask Governor Sherrill and provides an update on the New Jersey state budget. Photo: Governor Mikie Sherrill. Credit: State of New Jersey, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.