The Brian Lehrer Show

Mayor Adams holds one off-topic press conference per week, where reporters can ask him questions on any subject. Elizabeth Kim, Gothamist and WNYC reporter, recaps what he talked about at this week's event. This week's topics include how he's fighting the perception of crime in subways, whether city workers will receive exemptions from congestion pricing, the possibility of new criminal charges against the mayor, and more. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that its social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram and Threads—will stop using third-party fact-checkers and rely solely on its users to flag misinformation. Mike Isaac, New York Times reporter covering tech companies and Silicon Valley, explains why the company is repositioning its policy and how that may favor President-elect Donald Trump's second administration. Plus, Yael Eisenstat,  senior fellow at Cybersecurity for Democracy and former global head of Elections Integrity Ops for political advertising at Facebook, discusses her time at Facebook in 2018 as the head of global elections integrity for political ads and what this new move could mean for the company’s ability to meet its responsibility to secure elections.

U.S. Representative Frank Pallone (D NJ 6th), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, kicks off the new weekly series with a discussion of the work of the committee and what to expect under the new administration. 

It's been one week since people's New Year's resolutions began. Listeners call in to share how it's going so far, whether they've fallen off and how they can encourage others to keep going.

New York State Assembly Member Zohran K. Mamdani (D-36, Queens) talks about his campaign for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City, plus what he'll be focusing on in the next New York State legislative session. 

Doctors at four of the city's public hospitals are threatening to strike to protest working conditions, pay and other issues that are part of their stalled contract negotiations. Gray Ballinger, primary care physician at H+H/Queens Hospital Center, explains what's at stake for the physicians, and the largely low-income patients who depend on the public hospitals for care.

The New York City health department's most recent tally of top baby names put Liam and Emma on top. Listeners call in to share what they named their newborns this year, and whether the name landed on the top 10 list, or if they drew from the past or another well to find a unique name for their new baby.

WNYC/Gothamist editor Clayton Guse talks about the start of congestion pricing in Manhattan as listeners react, plus other transit news.

As the centennial series continues, Mark Mather, demographer and associate vice president for U.S. Programs at the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), walks us through the shifts in U.S. mortality statistics over the past 100 years.

Homelessness in the United States hit record high in 2024. Jennifer Ludden, NPR national correspondent covers housing and homelessness, and Peter Hepburn, associate director of Eviction Lab and an assistant professor of Sociology at Rutgers University-Newark, explain some of the factors of why the rates increased by double digits.