KQED's Forum

In a standoff with California courts, ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft have threatened to shut down operations in the state if forced to reclassify their drivers as employees, as mandated by new law AB 5. Both companies have appealed a state judge’s order to reclassify their drivers, but without a stay of the ruling, they must comply with state law by Friday at midnight. Internally, both compa...

We get the latest on the wildfires spreading through northern and central California and hear from health experts about how best to protect yourself from smoke and particulates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wildfires raging across northern California forced thousands to flee their homes Wednesday morning.  The most urgent situation unfolded in Vacaville, where a group of fires called the LNU Lightning Complex more than doubled in size overnight and destroyed over 50 homes and threatened nearly 2,000 more. Along with hot temperatures and low humidity, the fires are in part due to a “historic lightning...

While rotating power outages were averted on Monday, by Tuesday afternoon the California Independent System Operator, which manages the state's power grid, had again declared a "Stage 2" emergency and said outages were "imminent." California ISO later canceled that emergency and praised consumers for conserving energy that helped avoid another outage. The continuing heat wave sparked two nights of...

On Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its final report detailing its three-year investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff, who led President Trump's impeachment trial, says that the bipartisan report "affirms what we have all known for years" about Trump's vast network of contacts among Russian operatives and makes clear that...

In the wake of the 2018 Camp Fire that decimated the Northern California city of Paradise, PG&E officials framed such devastating blazes as a relatively new phenomenon exacerbated by climate change. A Frontline/KQED investigation found that in reality, PG&E was well aware of the threat and resisted implementing safety protocols to prevent wildfires for more than a decade. The investigation uncover...

On Tuesday, U.S. Postal Service postmaster general Louis DeJoy announced that he would suspend until after the November election operational reforms and initiatives “to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.”  Meanwhile, California and at least 20 other states will sue the Trump administration over those reforms--which include removal of mailboxes, sorting equipment and the elim...

The right to vote is a fundamental part of democracy -- a right, however, that hasn't always been afforded or guaranteed to all in the United States. August 18 marks the 100th anniversary of the day Congress passed the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. It was a hard-fought victory, but still only a starting place for Black women and other women of color. The Voting Rights Act of 19...

Students with disabilities in California will be able to receive face-to-face instruction at schools this fall. Gov. Gavin Newsom and State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond made the announcement Friday and acknowledged that some students with special needs are unable to adjust to distance learning. Families and students with learning disabilities and autism as well as students in...

In June 2018, NBC News and MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff became one of the first journalists allowed entry into Casa Padre, a Texas facility holding more than 1,400 migrant boys who’d been separated from their families at the Mexican border. The horror he experienced reporting on that facility formed the basis of his new book “Separated: Inside An American Tragedy,” which documents the Trump...

A new KQED investigation finds that more than a third of senior care facilities are at heightened risk for wildfires. Many aren't ready for emergencies.  That risk will continue to grow as California’s population ages. Officials estimate that, a decade from now, there will be 8.6 million residents over age 65, increasing the demand for home health and long-term care services. The coronavirus pande...

Why comedy, and why now? That's the question that media and social change scholar Caty Borum Chattoo poses at the outset of her book, "A Comedian and An Activist Walk Into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice." In it she and co-author Lauren Feldman explore how comedy -- by laying bare freighted issues like racism, sexism and inequality -- can help us work toward bridging divides an...

After following the notoriously bad relationship between baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent as well as the meteoric path of the Giants, Bay Area based sports writer Joan Ryan grew curious about team chemistry and how it affects performance.   She spent ten years probing sociology, neuroscience and psychology to answer questions about whether team chemistry was real. And if so, what is it exa...

As President Trump counters calls to defund the police and end systemic racism with demands for “law and order,” many Americans feel the country is deeply divided and broken. Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris attributes this division, as well as issues like mass incarceration and economic inequality, to a “framework of fear” that has grown between fellow Americans. In his new book, “‘We Keep...

By now, people are becoming used to seeing social media posts and articles about their favorite businesses closing for good. Thousands of beloved Bay Area enterprises from restaurants and boutiques to independent movie theaters and corner stores have shut down during the coronavirus pandemic. Some owners thought they could ride out shelter-in-place orders, but no longer see a viable future or coul...

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 97,000 Americans aged 18 and younger tested positive for Covid-19 in the last two weeks of July, representing a 40% increase in total pediatric cases in the U.S. Infected children are usually asymptomatic or have only minor symptoms, but the CDC reports that a small percentage may become severely ill. The CDC also reports that hospitalizat...

In a long awaited decision, democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has selected California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Harris will be the first woman of color to appear on a major party's presidential ticket. A Bay Area native, Harris drew on her childhood experience of being bused across Berkeley for school as part of a pointed attack against then-rival Joe Biden during her pres...

In the next 50 years, more than a million climate migrants could come to the United States from Central America if nothing is done to curb carbon emissions. That’s according to a new model that predicts where refugees from regions decimated by decreased crop productivity, water shortages and rising sea levels may move.  The model, developed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, finds that...

By the 2070s, climate change will reduce snowpack and increase extreme rainfall in the Sierra Nevada and California’s reservoirs will likely be overwhelmed. That’s according to a new study by UCLA climate scientists, who predict that run-off during so-called atmospheric rivers  will increase by nearly 50 percent, leading to widespread flooding across the state. We’ll talk about the impact of clima...

In her new book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents an examination of what she sees as America’s often disguised, but very real, caste system. The book compares America’s system with those in India and Nazi Germany, and delves into how America betrays its ideals of meritocracy by instead cultivating an insidious hierarchy based on race....

A close friendship can be one of the most fulfilling, and most challenging, relationships of our lives. In their book “Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close,” writers and longtime friends Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman share their honest and humorous account of what it really takes to maintain a meaningful bond -- from moments of being totally in sync to painful disagreements and everything...

In his new book "The Madman Theory," CNN anchor and Chief National Security correspondent Jim Sciutto highlights how President Trump’s unpredictable behavior--including threats to meet North Korea with “fire and fury” and to pull the U.S. out of NATO and NAFTA--have unnerved enemies and allies alike. Sciutto discusses how Trump’s volatility has led advisers to hesitate in giving the President mili...

Musician Nina Simone once said "an artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times." We're now seeing a reflection of our times -- the fight against racism and inequality -- in works of art on city streets and storefronts across California, as artists paint murals or graffiti remembering George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and declaring "Black Lives Matter." Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh...

QAnon, the online conspiracy group that traffics in baseless theories about a Satan-worshipping deep state, counts among its defenders Republican congressional candidates, far right media personalities and former and current Trump administration officials. It’s also stolen the minds of countless ordinary Americans who have come to believe in its apocalyptic, convoluted narratives. We’ll talk about...

For Bay Area food banks, securing funding and supplies is increasingly difficult during the pandemic.  The challenges come as the need for food assistance is rising.  Long lines have become common at food banks, and Second Harvest Food Bank in Silicon Valley is seeing a 100 percent increase in the number of people calling its food connection hotline, many for the first time. As the economic impact...