The Brian Lehrer Show

This year, South Korea recorded a national birth rate of 0.62 babies per woman, breaking its own record for the country with the lowest birthrate in the world. Anna Louie Sussman, freelance journalist covering gender, economics, health, and reproduction, and Meera Choi, sociology Ph.D. candidate at Yale University researching heterosexual refusal in South Korea, explain the reason why Korean women are opting out of having children -- even if it results in the eventual extinction of Korean people on the planet.

Ashwin Vasan, MD, PhD, commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, talks about the city's plan to increase life expectancy, which has taken a hit since COVID, including what conditions they are targeting in order to lengthen the life spans of New Yorkers.  

New York State Senator Julia Salazar (D, WF-18th district) discusses New York's housing crisis and a "good cause" eviction bill she's sponsored, plus other issues in play as part of the state budget.

Listeners call in to shout out stories of how women are fighting for their rights around the world.

Claudia Grisales, NPR Congressional correspondent, talks about the latest national politics news, including the reverberations of Sen. Schumer's remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams  (District 28, Queens neighborhoods of Jamaica, Rochdale Village, Richmond Hill, and South Ozone Park) talks about her recent State of the City address and the work of the council.

Tracy Bennett, Wordle and puzzles editor at the New York Times, talks about the celebration around the 1,000th Wordle game and offers insights into how the NYT puzzles are created and played.

Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them. Women Seeking Economic Equality (First) | Systemic Racism Explained (Starts at 23:57) | 1000 Wordles Later (Starts at 48:18) If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here.    

Jay Caspian Kang, staff writer for The New Yorker, documentary film director, and the author of The Loneliest Americans (Crown, 2021), shares his thoughts on what he calls the "ideology of the internet" and its tangible effects on culture, democracy, institutions and our day-to-day lives. → Arguing Ourselves to Death

Jon Alterman, senior vice president, Zbigniew Brzezinski chair in Global Security and Geostrategy and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and director of MEI’s Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs, talk about Senator Schumer's call for elections in Israel, plus the calls for cease-fire in Gaza -- how it could wor and why it means different things to different groups.