KQED's Forum

Donald Trump continues to cast doubt, without basis, on the fairness of the 2024 presidential election and has so far refused to say whether he will accept the certified results. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the Republican-controlled Elections Commission recently approved new rules allowing counties to delay certification of election results. All that’s had election integrity watchers warning that Trump...

In her acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination, Kamala Harris used “the Bay” when talking about where she grew up, rather than name-check Berkeley and its counterculture reputation. And she doesn’t always jump at the chance to call-out progressive San Francisco, where she first made her name in politics. But those omissions don’t seem to be dimming the local pride and excitement over the O...

There are nearly 100,000 fewer private sector tech jobs in California than two years ago, according to a July report from the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. We talk about what’s behind the trend and who’s been most affected by layoffs. And we’ll hear from you: whether you’re a veteran software engineer or new to the field, are you struggling to find a job in tech? Guests: Aki Ito, chief corre...

The donut shop. The local diner. The vacant lot where kids gather to play. These are the kinds of unassuming places that can foster a sense of belonging, according to author, scholar and visual artist Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, In her new book, “The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places,” she argues that these often overlooked places do the essential work of forming communities. She...

When Ann Powers began to draft her expansive new biography of Laurel Canyon music legend Joni Mitchell, she says that “certain subjects emerged: childhood as an imaginary terrain where singer-songwriters could express their ideals and idiosyncrasies; sadness as a complicated form of women’s liberation; side roads and retreats as the secret sources of an artist’s strengths. And traveling, always tr...

Michael Andor Broudeur is a classical music critic for the Washington Post and he’s also a self-described “meathead” with an relentless desire to make his body bigger. In his book “Swole: The Making of Man and the Meaning of Muscle” Broudeur grapples with the contradictions and complexities of male body image and masculinity. He embraces the gay male gym culture he’s a part of but writes that it w...

The Darién Gap, the perilous mountain region connecting Central and South America, was thought for centuries to be all but impossible to cross. But now, hundreds of thousands of migrants are doing just that to reach the U.S. Pulitzer Prize-winning immigration reporter Caitlin Dickerson took three trips to the Darién Gap over five months, following groups of migrants on their 70-mile trek from nort...

The son who traveled 2,500 miles to save his parents’ dog. The stranger who picked up the tab for a girl who was trying to buy a prom dress at Goodwill. The airport janitor who stopped to feed and comfort a stranded passenger. These are some of the small and big acts of kindness website Upworthy compiled into a new book, “Good People: Stories from the Best of Humanity.” We’ll talk to the editors a...

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi says that she’s won nearly all the legislative battles that she started — and she characterizes those she hasn’t won simply as “not yet achieved.” Pelosi has exerted her powers of persuasion and negotiation for 37 years as San Francisco’s congressional representative, pushing forward the Affordable Care Act and the Inflation Reduction Act and leveraging behind-th...

California lawmakers approved a landmark bill regulating artificial intelligence on Wednesday. SB 1047, co-authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), aims to curb potential dangers of AI such as misinformation, cyberattacks and the creation of novel biological weapons. It would mandate safety testing for advanced AI models that cost more than $100 million dollars, allow a kill switch f...

The smell of ink on paper. The handwritten staff recommendations. The plan to only buy one book, and the inevitable exit with five. Visiting a brick-and-mortar bookstore is not just a serotonin-releasing individual experience. Bookstores build community among the aspiring writer employee, the bookworm regular and everyone else who has “an attachment to the store and the store to them.” That’s acco...

As a new school year kicks off, San Francisco Unified School District faces several big challenges including pending school closures set to be announced later this month. The district, with a budget of $1.3 billion for this fiscal year, has been overspending for years as enrollment has declined. With its financial reserves running dry, district leaders and school board members have to wrangle in s...

Tech companies often portray their AI products as self-sufficient systems that learn from large datasets. However, AI development in reality relies heavily on a global workforce of undervalued workers, including data annotators, content moderators and machine learning engineers, who endure long hours for low pay while performing repetitive tasks. A new book, “Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human...

The crisis in Sudan, now in its second year, has been called the “Forgotten War.” While in the early 2000s, ethnic cleansing in Darfur, a region of Sudan, attracted the attention of politicians, journalists and celebrities, the current conflict – which pits two military factions against each other and the civilian population –rarely makes the front page. But the crisis in Sudan is acute: Since the...

Ketamine is perhaps best known as a party drug, and it has long been used in hospitals as an anesthetic. In recent years, it has also been touted as a promising, experimental psychiatric treatment. But when Friends actor Matthew Perry overdosed on ketamine last year, it exposed a network of unregulated clinics and unscrupulous doctors distributing the drug for off-label uses. In this hour, we’ll t...

California’s neighbors, Arizona and Nevada, stand out as pivotal swing states in this year’s presidential election, each with a large bloc of independent voters. Arizona’s shifting demographics and growing urban centers like Phoenix and Tucson, and Nevada’s blend of urban and rural populations, particularly in Clark County, make both states critical battlegrounds for both parties. We take a look a...

Ukraine has brought the war to Russia. Its incursion on Aug. 6 into the Kursk region marks the largest invasion of Russia since World War II. It also marks a shift in strategy for Ukraine and carries significant risks. We’ll talk about what Ukraine’s incursion signals at this point in the war – and how Moscow and the US are responding – two and a half years after Russia launched its full-scale inv...

Novelist and Atlantic staff writer Xochitl Gonzalez joins us to talk about her recent essay, a personal history about growing up with a mother who was largely absent from her life. Her mother, Andrea Gonzalez, joined the Socialist Workers Party as a young woman from Brooklyn, and devoted decades of her life to the cause and running for various political offices including vice president of the Unit...

California set an ambitious goal of making transitional kindergarten universal by fall of 2025. TK was originally created for kids born in the fall who were too young to enroll in kindergarten. Now, state leaders want to make it accessible to any 4-year-old. That means adding a whole new grade to all of the state’s elementary schools within a five year period that started in 2021. The rollout has...

On Thursday night the Bay Area’s own Kamala Harris will accept the nomination as the Democratic party’s presidential candidate after days of full throated embraces of her candidacy at the Democratic National Convention. KQED’s politics team joins us from the convention in Chicago to analyze notable moments from the convention and whether the party is embracing, or distancing itself, from Harris’ C...

The Paralympic Games open in Paris next week, showcasing the talent of elite athletes in 22 adaptive sports. Some, like Boccia and Goalball, are unique to the Paralympics while others, like sitting volleyball and wheelchair fencing, parallel Olympic events – with a twist. We’ll check in with members of Team USA, learn more about the athletes and events to watch, and hear about efforts to expand ad...

What can we learn from professional risk-takers—poker players, hedge fund managers, crypto true believers and blue-chip art collectors— about how to navigate the uncertainty of the twenty first century? Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, seeks to answer that question in his new book “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.” In Silver’s world view, risk takers are adept with details a...

Stand-up comic and mathematician Matt Parker loves triangles, and he wants everyone to appreciate them. Triangles help us calculate distances, the angle of an NBA 3-pointer and a winning billiards shot. They help us plan cities, cut sandwiches optimally and tell us the angle of impact of the asteroid that wiped out Earth’s dinosaurs. “Triangles are everything,” writes Parker, “and everything is tr...

Vice President Kamala Harris has released a set of proposals she says will make housing more affordable if she’s elected president in November. Her ideas include tax incentives to encourage more home construction, down payment assistance for homebuyers, and rules to make it harder for corporate investors to buy up single family houses. We’ll examine the plan and how much of a role the country’s ho...

The 2024 Democratic National Convention kicks off on Monday, capping a warp speed nomination process for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz. We’ll preview the four-day event in Chicago, where democrats are expected to try to build on momentum that’s brought record contributions and favorable poll numbers. What do you want to hear from the democratic part...