KQED's Forum

Is the United States in the talked-about and feared constitutional crisis? President Trump and his administration are increasingly ignoring federal court rulings on issues like immigration and funding. Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer calls the president’s defiance “a new step into presidential lawlessness.” We talk with Serwer and Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern about what this means for the balance o...

Ellis Island might have been a welcoming place for many immigrants to the United States, but Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay tells a more troubling history of immigrant detention. Starting next month, the Oakland Ballet will premiere “Angel Island Project,” a dance production highlighting the stories of immigrants, primarily from China, who were detained there in the early 20th century. As p...

Overturning Roe v. Wade was never the end goal of the anti-abortion movement, says UC Davis law professor and leading abortion historian Mary Ziegler. It was always to establish personhood for a fertilized egg, subject to equal protection under the Constitution. Should the “fetal personhood” movement succeed, then providing, assisting and even obtaining an abortion could be criminal acts. Ziegler...

More than a thousand international college students – scores of them in California – have had their visas terminated without explanation under new Trump administration policies. We’ll talk about what the administration’s targeting of international students and threatened withdrawals of federal funding mean for California students and schools, and how Universities and colleges are responding. Guest...

We often take our muscles for granted, rarely stopping to consider just how complex and essential they are. From the powerful beat of our hearts to the tiny fibers that raise goosebumps, our muscles do far more than we realize. They don’t just follow instructions from the brain — they send signals back and even hold their own kind of memory. In her new book “On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and...

In today’s intensely polarized climate, political conversations can quickly devolve into heated arguments. But a process called deliberative democracy has found success convening people from across the political spectrum for informed, reasoned dialogue on contentious issues. As part of KQED’s Youth Takeover week, high school students Ryan Heshmati and Anaya Ertz bring together the head of Stanford...

Many of President Trump’s first policies in office — including removing Temporary Protected Status for migrants, walking back climate protections and denying trans personhood — were laid out and published back in April 2023, in the Heritage Foundation’s playbook Project 2025. “Project 2025 envisions an America where abortion is strictly illegal, sex is closely policed, public schools don’t exist,...

As part of our series looking back on how the pandemic changed us, 5 years on, we examine the way we work. From working remotely to handling childcare needs to coping with being an essential worker, Covid forced innovations and exposed fault lines in the nation’s employment structure. We’ll talk about what we learned and we hear from you: How did the pandemic change how you do your job and think a...

A new documentary, “The Chaplain and the Doctor,” offers an intimate glimpse into the palliative care unit of an Oakland hospital, where two women — an 80-year-old African American chaplain and a white Jewish physician — navigate the complexities of end-of-life care from profoundly different perspectives. As their paths intertwine, what begins as a professional encounter deepens into a friendship...

California and Florida have been the epicenter of the home insurance crisis, with insurers jacking up prices, refusing coverage or fleeing the states entirely because of the massive costs from wildfire and hurricane damage. We team up with Florida public radio station WLRN to examine how our two states, with different politics and similar problems, are approaching the crisis. Guests: Danielle Vent...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Rivlin spent more than a year in the Bay Area shadowing the founders and venture capitalists vying to make big money off of generative AI. And in his new book “AI Valley,” Rivlin takes readers inside both the AI startups and the tech giants like Microsoft, Meta and Google trying to keep up. He chronicles the figures and breakthroughs of generative AI’s recent...

Votes are still being tallied for Oakland’s Special Election that will determine who will finish out the term left vacant after former mayor Sheng Thao was recalled last fall. As of Wednesday, former Oakland City Councilmember Loren Taylor held a narrow lead over former U.S. representative Barbara Lee. Taylor campaigned as someone who knows the local issues and politics and can move the city forwa...

President Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs caused chaos in financial markets and left investors scrambling. But who’s profiting from the turmoil? Democrats are calling for investigations into whether the President, his family or members of Congress used insider information to benefit from the stock market’s swings. We delve into allegations that some lawmakers are making money off Trump’s trade...

In a sweeping executive order, Donald Trump has taken aim at efforts by states, including California, to set their own environmental policies. At risk are key components of California’s fight against climate change including its cap and trade program to control carbon emissions and efforts to promote electrical vehicles. Trump’s order is just the latest in his moves to reverse climate change polic...

Tens of thousands of immigrants received notices last week from the Department of Homeland Security that their temporary legal statuses would be terminated in seven days. But many immigration experts say the migrants have legal grounds to remain. This comes after a New York Times investigation found that the Social Security Administration listed more than 6,300 migrants as dead to effectively canc...

When tech writer Vauhini Vara was struggling to process her sister’s death in 2021, she asked an early version of ChatGPT to write about it through an increasingly complex series of prompts. The essays in her collection, “Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age” build on her conversations with AI, enlisting its help to grapple with what it means to be human when our thoughts, our words — and with th...

Off the coast of Sausalito lies one of the nation’s oldest unhoused communities. Known as “anchor-outs,” residents live aboard makeshift boats moored in the bay, carving out a precarious existence. For nearly a decade, author Joe Kloc immersed himself in their world, documenting their struggles and growing tensions with shoreline residents determined to push them out. We talk to Kloc about his new...

The U.S. economy has been rattled by back-and-forth tariff policies, a seesawing stock market, and concerns about inflation continuing to rise. Americans are worried about their job security, retirement funds, and the rising costs of goods from groceries to SUVs. We talk with financial experts to help us make sense of the economic uncertainty and how it should affect our financial choices. Are you...

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...

“An artist is an ordinary person who can take ordinary things and make them special,” said San Francisco artist Ruth Asawa. From her studio in her home in Noe Valley, Asawa created crocheted wire sculptures whose shadows are just as evocative as the art itself. But as the mother of six, Asawa was also passionate about arts education and teaching. As a new retrospective of her work and life opens a...

Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday when President Trump backtracked and announced a 90-day pause on the sweeping tariffs he unveiled last week, dropping the duty rate to 10% for most countries. But it’s little reprieve for California farmers who export crops like almonds and pistachios to China. Trump has raised the taxes on imports from China to 125%, and further retaliatory tariffs...

Viet Thanh Nguyen came to the United States as a 4-year-old refugee after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. His family eventually settled in San Jose. Nguyen went on to become a Pulitzer Prize-Winning novelist and memoirist whose books center the experience of Vietnamese people. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, we’ll reflect on the war’s lasting impact and what...

Four of California’s largest home insurers are knowingly using faulty data to set coverage limits, according to a new San Francisco Chronicle investigation. It means that wildfire survivors who thought they’d be made whole after losing their homes are discovering they can’t afford to rebuild. We talk to the reporters behind the investigation and hear how you can find out if your California home is...

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is scaling back a key part of the city’s harm reduction strategy: the free distribution of clean foil pipes and plastic straws in public settings. These supplies are typically used to smoke fentanyl or methamphetamines. We talk to addiction specialists about how this policy change might impact drug use in the city. Guests: Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry a...

It’s been two years this month since fighting broke out between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, leading to a devastating civil war that’s so far killed more than 150,000 people and displaced 13 million while causing the world’s worst famine in decades. The New York Times was the first Western outlet to report from the center of the Sudanese capital since the...