KQED's Forum

The latest reporting from Gaza describes a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. Children are starving; families face impossible choices between food and safety. Hospitals cannot function and medical staff are too weak to help patients. We talk to aid workers and journalists reporting from both sides of Israel’s near-total blockade of supplies going into Gaza about what they’re witnessi...

California has long gone head-to-head with big oil, leading many of the efforts to curb climate damage caused at the hands of the fossil fuel industry – including spearheading lawsuits against oil companies and pushing fracking bans.  But faced with the closure of two state refineries, and rising gas prices, Governor Gavin Newsom has made some major concessions on oil to not only keep the refineri...

Is legacy media self-censoring under the Trump Administration? The canceling of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and the multi-million dollar payouts from the parent companies of CBS and ABC to settle defamation lawsuits are all causes for concern, according to media analyst and Guardian US columnist Margaret Sullivan, who worries hard news reporting could become a thing of the past. We talk w...

New Yorker staff writer Burkhard Bilger doesn’t have great teeth. According to Bilger, his “gaptoothed grin” makes him look like he came from a bar fight or a remake of “Deliverance.” Given his lousy dental insurance, a friend recommended that Bilger head to Mexico’s “Molar City,” Los Algodones, a place that has the highest per capita concentration of dentists in the world, to get his teeth fixed....

California Democrats have long criticized gerrymandering, the practice of drawing district maps to influence election outcomes. But as Texas Republicans have unveiled district maps intended to favor conservatives in the 2026 midterms, California lawmakers are sketching new plans of their own. Governor Gavin Newsom has announced plans to seek a special election in November, asking California voters...

In 2008, the Obama administration compiled a massive report with the goal of answering one big question: Is climate change a danger to human health in America? Comprised of some of the most comprehensive scientific findings of all time, the Endangerment Finding concluded that it was, which allowed the  government to regulate climate change—including putting restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions...

Dr. Elias Zerhouni’s journey began in Algeria, where he taught himself mathematics as bombs fell outside his window. With two suitcases and a few hundred dollars, his family eventually immigrated to the United States. Driven by an unshakable belief in science and service, Zerhouni rose through the ranks of medical research to become director of the National Institutes of Health under President Geo...

Democrats long assumed they could count on voters of color to support their candidates and causes, and for many years they did. But last year’s presidential election was a wake up call for Democrats as Donald Trump gained significant support from Black, Latino and Asian American voters, especially men. In studying the racially and ethnically diverse voter coalition that brought Barack Obama to pow...

We’re joined in studio for a live performance by the Jahari Stampley Family Trio. Stampley, an award-winning jazz pianist who is known for melding genres like funk, gospel and rock, calls his forthcoming album “What A Time” a sonic reflection of “the quiet stillness of late-night thoughts, the joy of a spontaneous jam, the fire of resistance, and the calm of resolution.” We talk to Stampley about...

The Grateful Dead is showing a touch of grey as the band turns 60, and San Francisco is pulling out the stops to celebrate: tie-dye buses, banners across the city and the revival of Shakedown Street, the pop-up market that appears at Dead shows. The party culminates with three-nights of Dead & Company concerts from August 1-3 at Golden Gate Park’s Polo Field featuring band originals Bob Weir and M...

Musician Greta Morgan began performing professionally when she was 16, singing for groups like The Hush Sound and Gold Motel before touring with Vampire Weekend and charting her own path as a singer-songwriter. But in 2020, a severe case of Covid led to a neurological disorder that reduced her voice to a hush. We talk to Morgan about what a drastic change to her singing voice taught her about her...

Kaiser Permanente will stop providing gender-affirming surgeries for patients under the age of 19, as a result of President Trump’s executive order targeting health centers that provide care for transgender youth. Providers across the nation have been scaling back on gender-affirming care, including Stanford Medicine and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, but Kaiser’s decision has shocked many provi...

In almost every part of the country, the amount people pay for electricity has gone up faster than the rate of inflation and it will likely continue to rise, according to the Energy Information Administration. So what’s ballooning your utility bill? We’ll talk with energy and policy experts about the increasing demands posed by data centers, the aging electricity infrastructure, and the new barrie...

The South Bay in San Diego County is the site of one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons of untreated sewage and industrial chemicals flow daily into the Tijuana River and out of Imperial Beach. New research connects the waste to worsening air quality, which has been linked with headaches, skin infections and gastrointestinal problems in the local population. We’ll...

National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann says he chooses what to write about based on what he most wants to know. His latest novel “Twist” springs from his fascination with the underwater cables, no thicker than a garden hose, that carry some 95% of the world’s telecommunications. McCann’s protagonist is a journalist who goes asea to investigate a cable break off the coast of Africa after t...

As ICE raids sweep across the country as a part of President Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, ethnic media outlets in California are playing an invaluable role keeping the communities they serve informed. We talk with media organizations that serve immigrant and diaspora audiences about how their communities are dealing with the impacts of the administration’s enforcement actions, how their approa...

A record high 7 million U.S. children have received an ADHD diagnosis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But journalist Paul Tough wonders if we’re thinking about pediatric ADHD all wrong. For a recent New York Times Magazine feature, Tough spent a year talking to leading researchers who now say that standard treatments like Ritalin only help children behave better, not...

In Gary Shteyngart’s new novel, “Vera, or Faith,” a precocious 10-year old Korean-American girl, with a curious mind and exceptional vocabulary, navigates her way through a dystopian nearfuture. The politics of this America, in which a constitutional amendment to give “exceptional” white Americans more voting rights is being considered, are confusing. But even more so is Vera’s complicated family...

For people of Mexican descent, mariachi music is synonymous with milestones such as weddings, birthday parties, funerals or maybe just Saturday-morning chores. The genre, which originated in the 18th century in the western state of Jalisco, has morphed into one of Mexico’s most beloved styles of music that is now popular worldwide. In California, more high schools and colleges such as San Jose Sta...

The photograph of your grandmother that’s at least a century old, yellowing at the edges. An embroidered handkerchief that’s crossed the globe. The family Mahjong rules. We might want to pass certain items down to subsequent generations, but may not know how to keep them in usable condition. And with so much of our lives happening digitally, how can we ensure the tender voicemails, photos and emai...

The arrival of tools like ChatGPT has changed how college students write. Some use A.I. to organize ideas or fine-tune phrasing; others rely on it to complete entire assignments. Professors are adapting in turn, trading take-home essays for blue books, experimenting with oral exams or rethinking their pedagogy to include A.I. from the start. We talk with New Yorker staff writer and Bard College li...

The Trump administration is pushing to reopen Alcatraz as a federal prison, requiring the repeal of National Park protections and ending its six-decade transformation from America’s most notorious penitentiary into one of its most popular tourist sites. Throughout its long history, Alcatraz has served not only as a prison, but also as a military base, a site of Native American unity and resistance...

Billboards promoting movies “for your consideration” take over Los Angeles freeways every award season, while San Francisco’s drivers are inundated with tech jargon. But billboards do more than promote the industries that power our economy. Up and down California, they serve as cultural touchstones, calls to action and reflections of local values and beliefs. We talk about California’s unique cult...

The Supreme Court has given the Trump Administration the greenlight to gut the workforce of the Department of Education. The move isn’t just about reducing the government’s payroll; it’s part of a much larger attack on public education according to some education advocates. Critics of the department, which the Republican Party has attempted to shut down since it was created 45 years ago, say the f...

Questions continue to mount about President Trump’s connection to the deceased, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The president’s MAGA base — and now some congressional Democrats — are demanding to see more files, including a so-called “client list” belonging to Epstein. We look at how we got here, and the political impacts of the growing controversy. What do you think the Epstein fallout wi...