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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. All right. It's membership drive news quiz time. Have you been paying attention in 2023? If so, call right up. If you get three news quiz answers in a row right, we'll send you the new Brian Lehrer Show baseball hat. Who wants to play? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. It's membership drive news quiz time. 212-433-9692. No grades, just prizes in this low-stakes pop quiz. While your calls are coming in, let me give you the context for this.

We are in our annual spring membership drive, which you know by now, and during this 11:00 AM hour of the show, every day during the drive, we're going to try to do it a different way than is typical, with a Brian Lehrer Show fundraising party. It's like the bake sale at your school. We don't actually have the PTA meeting at the bake sale, we have cake, cookies, and games. That's the model for our 11:00 AM to noon spring fundraising parties that we're going to be doing for the rest of the drive.

Hope you enjoy, and of course, that you will pitch in. What happens at this event? Well, we're doing three segments each day, in this 11:00 AM to noon fundraising party. Segment one, like we're inviting you into right now, it's a low-stakes pop quiz. We don't give grades, we do give prizes. That's what we're starting right now for today, with this news of 2023 low-stakes pop quiz. Who wants to try for three in a row, and that Brian Lehrer Show baseball hat? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

We'll have a different quiz right at this time every day. Segment two, we will bring back our most fun or interesting call-ins of 2023 for a second round of fun. All the good ones wind up with more listeners waiting their turn than we can take, so it's our most fun or interesting call-ins of 2023, round two, coming up later this hour. We will end each of these hours with things to do this summer. Mostly things around here, in our local Greater New York listening area. It's a low-stakes pop quiz. Grades, no. Prizes, yes.

Our most fun call-ins of 2023 round two, and things to do in the New York area. Maybe we'll throw in some elsewhere, coming up this summer. We begin today with the low-stakes pop quiz. The subject, again, is the news of 2023 so far, mostly true or false questions. Have you been paying attention in 2023? Who wants to play? Brandy, in Manhattan, wants to play. Hi, Brandy, you're on WNYC.

Brandy: Hello. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: All right. You ready for question one?

Brandy: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: California Congressman Kevin McCarthy made history this year when it took 15 rounds of voting to accomplish what?

Brandy: Become the speaker of the House.

Brian Lehrer: That's right. To get his own majority party to elect him as Speaker of the House. Now, true or false? Those 15 rounds of ballots were the longest election in US speaker history.

Brandy: No.

Brian Lehrer: No. False. That is correct. As embarrassed as Speaker McCarthy might have been this year, he had nothing on Speaker Nathaniel Banks. According to a history on CBS News, the vote for speaker in 1855 was the longest in history, taking two months, and 133 ballots. The House then elected representative Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts as its presiding officer for the 34th Congress, 1855 to 1857. There's a little useless history for you, everybody.

All right. That's two in a row, Brandy. One more, and you can win yourself a Brian Lehrer Show baseball hat. True or false. New York City hired its first-ever rat czar this year.

Brandy: True.

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Brian Lehrer: That is true. Brandy, hang on. We're going to take your address off the air, and send you that baseball hat. Yes, folks. In April, Kathleen Corradi was hired as the city's director of rodent mitigation. All right.

Brandy: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Good. Thank you. Hang on. We're going to take your address, as I say, off the air. Let's go next to Steve, in Manhattan, on line two. Steve, you ready to play?

Steve: I'm ready.

Brian Lehrer: All right, Steve, true or false? After months of seeming to defraud the public about his background, Republican Congressman George Santos, of Queens, in Long Island, was actually charged by federal prosecutors with criminal fraud. True or false?

Steve: I know he was charged with fraud. I'm going to go true.

Brian Lehrer: True is correct. Fraud plus is the full answer, but true, in the way we posed the question. Wire fraud, plus money laundering, and stealing public funds. According to Politico, federal prosecutors accused Santos in a 13-count indictment of fraudulently obtaining unemployment benefits while employed, and other stuff. That's one right. All right. Which of the following workforces in our area went on strike this year? A-- Nurses. B-- Writers. C-- College professors. D-- All of the above.

Steve: I'm going to go with D, all the above.

Brian Lehrer: D, all of the above, is right. There was the nurses' strike at Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai, faculty members at Rutgers, and currently, the Writers Guild of America. That is correct. That's two. One more, and you too will win a new Brian Lehrer Show baseball cap. True or False? Earlier this month, the Biden administration cleared New York's congestion pricing plan pending environmental review. It might be as much as $82 for a truck to drive into the Manhattan business district.

Steve: I don't think you're playing games with the numbers. I'm not sure of the number, but I'm going to go with true, because I know it was cleared.

Brian Lehrer: True is correct.

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Brian Lehrer: I knew those trumpeters were going to come in eventually. We're going to take your address off the air and send you a Brian Lehrer Show baseball cap, Steve, hang on. Yes, the details there, folks, if you didn't know this one, the public transit agency, as reported on Politico, has not determined how much to charge drivers, but it has considered fares ranging from $9 to $23 for passenger vehicles, and between $12 and $82 for trucks, so it could be as much as $82.

There's a big range there, that they haven't finalized yet. The scenarios contemplate different combinations of potential discounts, credits, and exemptions. Steve, good job. We're going to send you a hat. Hang on. Let's see. Nikki, in Harlem, is up next. Hi, Nikki, you're ready to play?

Nikki: Hi, Brian. I'm ready. You are on speaker. Can you hear me all right?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you all right. You have a good speakerphone, I guess. Listeners, don't let that lull you into complacency. Usually, it doesn't work on speakerphone. Our screeners will usually tell you to speak right into your mouthpiece. All right. True or false? Earlier this month, a Manhattan federal jury found that Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996, and awarded her $5 million for battery and defamation. True or false?

Nikki: Okay, Brian, that's false. He was found not to have raped her, [unintelligible 00:08:37] the other part.

Brian Lehrer: That is right. That is exactly right. That is exactly right. The other part of that, that was slightly false, was that they never did peg the exact date. It might have been late 1995 or early '96. You got that right. True or false? Earlier this year, the New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Plotkin seized control of the Paterson Police Department, citing a crisis of confidence after the fatal police shooting of a man experiencing a mental health crisis. True or false that the state now took over the police department in Paterson?

Nikki: Oh, my God. I think I'm going to say true.

Brian Lehrer: That is true. According to CNN's version, the state takeover followed a call from nearly 50 state groups, including the ACLU in New Jersey, for the US Justice Department, to investigate Paterson police, after that fatal police shooting of 31-year-old Najee Seabrooks, earlier this month, who was experiencing a mental health crisis, and the state did take it over. That's two in a row right. Let's see if you can hit the trifecta here, and win yourself a Brian Lehrer Show baseball cap.

True or false? New York City experienced the lowest snowfall accumulation, since record-keeping began for the city after the Civil War, this winter. True or false? Lowest snow record.

Nikki: I'm going to say false.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I'm sorry, you were so close to winning a baseball hat, but the answer happens to be true. By the end of March, the National Weather Service, the station at Central Park, had measured just 2.3 inches of snowfall for the season. The previous record was set in the winter of 1972-1973, with 2.8 inches. There you go. Sorry, thanks for playing. We're going to go on to Katie, in Kingston. Hi, Katie, ready to play?

Katie: Yes, I'm here. Hi, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Hi there. Okay, Katie, true or false? Last weekend in Iowa, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially announced his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Katie: Oh, false?

Brian Lehrer: That is false, for now, according to CNBC, the governor's political operation started moving out of its Tallahassee offices and into a new location, on Monday. The cost of the move will likely exceed $5,000. That threshold triggers a 15-day countdown for the operation to file a so-called Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. Watch that space, coming up, because he did start a clock ticking, but he hasn't yet declared.

All right, next question. A bird went viral this year, when it escaped the Central Park Zoo after someone ripped its enclosure open, in February. Is the bird's name-- These are all real birds, is the bird's name Raul the Peacock, Flaco the Eurasian Eagle Owl, Pale Male the red-tailed Hawk, or the Mandarin duck of Central Park?

Katie: It's Flaco.

Brian Lehrer: It is Flaco, the Eurasian Eagle Owl. That's two in a row right. Flaco escaped from the Central Park Zoo after someone ripped his enclosure open, and it's been allowed to live on his own. Raul the Peacock escaped from the Bronx Zoo, not the Central Park Zoo. Raul, also, in the news. All right, for the Brian Lehrer Show baseball hat, true or false? This year, the British Monarchy crowned its first king in over 70 years. True or false?

Katie: True.

Brian Lehrer: True.

Katie: Yay.

Brian Lehrer: From Britannica, Queen Elizabeth ruled from her father King George VI's death in 1952, until she passed, last September. In 2015, she had surpassed Victoria to become the longest-reigning Monarch in British history. King Charles' coronation, we all know, took place this month. The first one in over 70 years. Way to go, Katie. Hang on, we're going to take-

Katie: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: -your contact information off the air and send you a Brian Lehrer Show baseball cap. All right, folks, that is it for today's low-stakes pop quiz, with no grades, only prizes. We're going to be doing another one every day during this membership drive, at 11 o'clock.

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