KQED's Forum

Reading used to be the main way Americans got information, but most of us now turn to our phones, the internet, social media or television for news and entertainment. The share of Americans reading an article daily has plunged by about 40 percent, and according to the National Endowment for the Arts, fewer than half of all adults read a book in 2022. In a new article from The Atlantic, staff...

In 2025 only 14 percent of rape cases in San Francisco were closed, according to an ongoing investigation from the SF Standard. That’s half the national rate. While the procedures for administering and processing rape kit tests has improved greatly in San Francisco over the past decade, cuts to the special victims unit and other factors have resulted in fewer investigations into alleged...

When investigative journalist Stephen Witt visited Silicon Valley’s 1X Technologies to meet a new home robot named Neo, he discovered a device full of contradictions: It was elegantly designed, but often struggled to complete even the simplest of tasks, taking longer than a minute to retrieve a bottle of water. Despite its limitations, more than 10,000 people have placed deposits for the $20,000 a...

Angelica Glass started taking long walks as a way to exercise and to relieve the stress from her decades as a social worker trying to help families struggling with poverty. She set a goal to walk every street in Santa Cruz County. While trekking the nearly three thousand miles over severalyears, she found herself gently working through the grief of her own childhood of abuse and neglect, while abs...

Americans are notoriously bad at taking time off from work. Once entering the workforce, we expect to be devoutly productive for decades on end, awarded with an extended break only upon retirement. In his new book, “Big Time Off: The Transformative Power of Sabbaticals and How to Take One,” Harvard Business School’s DJ DiDonna urges us to step away from our desks to take an extended break from wor...

Polls find growing ambivalence in young adults’ views towards marriage — even as society continues to grant greater privileges and respect to married people. This comes as the right pushes for a return to “traditional marriage” — an idea which historian Stephanie Coontz says isn’t actually based in history, as expectations of marriage, monogamy, gender roles and even the title “Mrs.” have drastica...

Federal health officials are eying iceberg lettuce distributed by California-based Taylor Farms as a potential source of the major cyclosporiasis outbreak in the United States. Health authorities tracking 4,173 confirmed and 7,400 likely cases of the infection, which can cause severe diarrhea, cramping and fatigue that lasts up to a month. We talk with food safety and health experts on what it wil...

The mandate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has long been to help states and local governments meet the needs of communities after disaster strikes. But since the Trump Administration took office, the agency has been threatened with closure and has suffered massive budget and staff cuts, essentially crippling its ability to respond to catastrophic events. As natural disasters intensify...

More than four months after President Trump predicted a short war with Iran, the conflict is intensifying and broadening. The ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran has collapsed, leaving passage through the Strait of Hormuz restricted and the two nations on a war footing: the United States has carried out days of sustained airstrikes while Iran targets American allies in the Gulf. To many an...

There was a time when U.S. automakers dominated the global car industry  with their products and innovations. But when it comes to electric vehicles, which accounted for a quarter of global auto sales in 2025, the U.S. is barely a player.  China now builds roughly three-quarters of the world’s EVs; the United States about five percent.  We’ll talk about how the widening technology g...

During World War II, the US government asked the Japanese American citizens it interned two questions: Would you serve in the US armed forces wherever ordered? And would you swear “unqualified allegiance” to the U.S. and forswear any allegiance to Japan’s emperor? Those two so-called loyalty questions animate acclaimed novelist Karen Tei Yamashita’s latest book, which explores that historical peri...

When San Francisco police drone video surveillance was accidentally livestreamed on the internet last month, it revealed how extensively, and at what great detail, the city is watched from above. The use of surveillance technology is rapidly growing in the Bay Area, with increasing drone and AI-powered surveillance networks partnering with local law enforcement and government agencies. In 2024, th...

Burning Man turns 40 this year, and its changed dramatically since the first event in San Francisco. The first gathering drew a couple dozen people who gathered to burn an 8-foot wooden effigy at Baker Beach to celebrate the summer solstice. Four decades later, it’s a multi-million dollar operation that every August draws more than 70 thousand people to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. A new HBO d...

As a historian who teaches a class called “The History of Information,” Stanford professor Thomas Mullaney has spent decades thinking about the unreliability of archival materials in understanding the past, subject as they are to decay, disorder and obsolescence. But it wasn’t until his own father died and he scrambled to preserve the evidence of his life that he decided to write a personal histor...

The University of California system is considering requiring SAT or ACT scores in admissions again, after more than 3,000 faculty members signed open letters in favor of bringing back the test requirement. Professors say their students have fared worse in math since the UC system did away with a standardized testing requirement in 2020. Many of the nation’s most selective universities have already...

Peptides are everywhere in the healthcare zeitgeist. On social media, you’re likely to encounter an influencer claiming that injecting or ingesting peptides can improve your skin, build muscle,increase focus or help you lead a longer and healthier life. Peptides are short chains of amino acids that are fundamental building blocks in protein and our bodies make them naturally. While some synthetic...

A coalition of 12 states, including California, has filed a lawsuit to block Paramount’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. California Attorney General Rob Bonta argues the merger of the two entertainment “behemoths” would lead to higher prices, lower quality and less content for consumers. Meanwhile the federal Justice Department, which has already approved the merger, says it be...

A landmark bipartisan federal housing bill became law this weekend. The package includes 56 initiatives, regulatory tweaks and reforms designed to improve housing affordability nationwide — and local housing policy experts say it could have a material impact on the Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis. We’ll learn more about the local impacts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/a...

The Supreme Court ruled last month that the Trump administration could eliminate temporary protected status for immigrants from Haiti and Syria, a decision that affects some 350,000 people who had been living and working legally in the United States for years — and leaves even more immigrants in legal limbo. We’ll talk to an immigration reporter who’s been following the case, an ACLU lawyer who re...

California is one of the most unequal states in the country with extreme disparities between people living in poverty and those at the top of the income spectrum. Given the visibility of the problem, with homeless encampments and multimillion dollar houses populating our landscape while the middle class shrinks, UC Berkeley professors Cristina Mora and Tianna Paschel set out to find out why Califo...

The 2026 FIFA World Cup has shattered the tournament’s attendance record, with over 6 million fans showing up for matches across the United States, Mexico and Canada. The tournament has delivered for international visitors, pairing big games with viral moments of tourists trying American foods like Texas barbeque and ranch dressing for the first time. But President Trump’s intervention reversing a...

While the Iran war occupies domestic headlines, Russia’s war in Ukraine has entered its fifth year. As the Trump administration retreats from peace negotiations and Ukraine’s drone strikes reach deep into Russia, European allies are scrambling to fill the security vacuum. We’ll discuss the state of the war and how it has changed the face of modern conflict, U.S. policy, and NATO’s future. Learn mo...

Christopher Nolan’s latest film, The Odyssey, doesn’t debut in theaters until next week, but it’s already drawing online backlash for perceived inaccuracies from Homer’s epic poem. The story dates back to ancient Greece and has been told countless times; Nolan’s interpretation draws from a 2017 translation of classical studies scholar Emily Wilson that’s noted for its conversational language and f...

Celebrated Bay Area artist Mildred Howard’s work has long been informed by the place she calls home, reflecting the intersection of her family’s history and the larger history of the Bay Area. You may have seen her massive “Frame” at Hunters Point Shipyard, her wall of saxophones at SFO or her sculpture, “Delivered, Mable’s Promissory Note,” outside the Ashby BART station, which commemorates her m...

The election and popularity of candidates like New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, who saw a number of political allies win Congressional primaries last month, has some establishment Democrats shaking. We dig into what’s fueling the breakout success of candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, and look at how they’re reshaping liberal politics ahead of the midterm elections...