The Brian Lehrer Show

Again this year, we hear from the makers of the five films nominated for the Academy Award for best feature documentary. Today, documentary filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir talks about her film "The Perfect Neighbor" which uses police body cam footage to tell the story of a Florida community and the deadly consequences of "stand your ground" laws. Photo Courtesy of Message Pictures. 

California's richest residents are threatening to leave the state over a proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires. Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff at SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, an architect of the proposal, explains how the tax would work.Photo: California Governor Gavin Newsom gestures as he speaks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 22, 2026. Newsom opposes this proposal. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images) 

U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D NJ) talks about his work in the Senate and the issues in New Jersey, including his trip to the Munich Security Conference and how Sec. Rubio's speech was received.photo credit: U.S. Senate Photographic Studio

Karsonya Wise Whitehead, president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History and professor of communications and African and African American Studies at Loyola University Maryland and the founding executive director of the Karson Institute for Race, Peace, & Social Justice, talks about the history of Black History Month, which was established first as ""Negro History Week"" in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, and how it evolved over the mid-20th century." Image by courtesy of Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images.

For Presidents' Day, Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian and the author of American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union (Random House, 2026), puts today's political conflicts in the historical context of tensions going back to the country's founding.=> EVENT: Jon Meacham will be in conversation with John Dickerson at 92NY on Tuesday, February 17th, 7 pm (tickets here).cover image courtesy of the publisher

Sophia Lebowitz, reporter for Streetsblog, explains the new 15 mile-per-hour speed limit in effect for all vehicles in Central Park, including bicycles and e-bikes, designed to make the drive safer for pedestrians, while Neile Weissman, cycling advocate and contributor to Streetsblog, argues that more options for cyclists would be a more effective strategy.Photo: cyclists in Central Park, 2011. Credit: Lynn Kim/WNYC.

Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.What NYC's CEOs Want From the Mamdani Administration (First) | An Argument for 'Tax the Rich' (Starts at : 33) | Tow Truck Turmoil (Starts at 1:14)If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here.

For Valentine's Day, Charlotte Cowles, financial advice columnist for The Cut, offers some personal finance advice for couples. Photo: Valentine's chocolates in Japan (Syced, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Binyamin Appelbaum, lead writer on economics and business for The New York Times editorial board and the author of The Economists' Hour (Little, Brown and Company, 2019) , talks about the use of robots and automation in farming jobs typically held by immigrants and why cutting immigration doesn't necessarily lead to more job openings.Photo caption: A worker drives in cattle to be milked at T-Bar Dairy in Porterville, California, on December 17, 2024. (Photo by David Swanson / AFP via Getty Images)  

Liam Quigley, reporter covering parks & sanitation for Gothamist and WNYC, talks about his investigation into NYC's tow truck industry, where he found unscrupulous practices that have consequences for street safety, insurance claims and more.