The Brian Lehrer Show

Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them. How Memory Works  (First) | Assessing Where Israel Went Wrong in Gaza (Starts at 18:45) | Introducing the 2024 Public Song Project (Starts at 54:15) If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here.

Tyler Pager, Washington Post White House reporter, offers analysis of President Biden's State of the Union address, amid high election year stakes.

On Thursday, eighth-graders bound for New York City public high schools received their admission offers. Listeners call in to debrief.

Earlier this month, all businesses in the city had to change how they put trash out to be collected - from plastic bags piled up on the street to inside containers with a tight lid. Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation, reports on how the change is going, breaks news about residential trash containerization, and what might come next in the city's battle with its considerable rat population.

Israel has killed at least 30,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since launching its retaliatory war after the devastating October 7th attack. Zach Beauchamp, senior correspondent at Vox, argues that the war in Gaza has become an "era-defining catastrophe" and explains where Israel went wrong in its approach to the war.

In this membership-drive mini-series, we get to know about hobbies and building skills and finding communities for fun. Today, David Bresnick, president of the U.S. Professional Mahjong League and founder of the mahjong event space Sparrow's Nest Studio in Manhattan, shares his passion for mahjong.

Christian Paz, senior politics reporter for Vox, offers analysis of California's Senate primary, where Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican (and former LA Dodgers star) Steve Garvey emerged as the top two candidates and will now face each other in the general election.

The Adams administration has made budget cuts that are affecting the number of available seats in 3K and pre-k. Jessica Gould, WNYC/Gothamist reporter, talks about where the cuts leave the program, which was the signature achievement of Mayor Adams's predecessor, and what it means for families with young children looking for a break on childcare costs.

Listeners try their hand at a ten-question quiz about New York City mayors from recent -- and more distant-- history.

Charan Ranganath, PhD, professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Davis, where he leads their Dynamic Memory Lab, and the author of Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold on to What Matters (Doubleday, 2024), explains what we know about remembering and forgetting.