The Bay

Time flies, time is money, time waits for no one. We are so conditioned to obsess over time, how we use it, and getting the most out of it – or else, we feel guilty. In this episode of KQED’s Forum, co-hosts Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost of the Atlantic’s ‘How to Keep Time’ talk with Grace Won about optimizing “free” time, and why we struggle to comfortably do nothing.  Episode transcript Learn more...

The Bay team is sharing each of their favorite episodes of 2023. This episode, picked by editor Alan Montecillo, first published on June 28. In it, we hear from Gwenn Craig, a queer elder who reflects on the transformation — and corporatization — of San Francisco Pride, and why it still matters now more than ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bay team is sharing each of their favorite episodes of 2023. This episode, picked by producer Maria Esquinca, was first published on Nov. 15. In it, KQED reporter and producer Blanca Torres talks about a nonprofit that organized accordion classes to help farm workers affected by the Half Moon Bay shooting heal from their trauma.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bay team is sharing each of their favorite episodes of 2023. This episode, picked by host Ericka Cruz Guevarra, was first published on June 12. In it, The Bay team visits a pickleball court in Oakland’s Bushrod Park, where the sport has grown in part because of its intergenerational draw. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sandy Stier and Kris Perry were plaintiffs in a landmark case challenging California’s Prop 8, which banned gay marriage in 2008. Their trial went all the way to the Supreme Court, and would eventually restore marriage equality to California. This year, KQED invited Stier and Perry to watch unsealed tapes from the trial of their younger selves taking the stand for marriage equality, and to reflect...

Nestled in the Berkeley Hills, Indian and Mortar rocks are popular hangout spots known in part for epic views of the Bay. For climbers like Berkeleyside reporter Ally Markovich, they’re known for their outsized role in the development of bouldering.  But for the native Ohlone, the boulders are a symbol of a destroyed cultural landscape, and an urgent call to protect native history. Links: Transcri...

Two very Bay Area crises – sea level rise and the housing crisis – are colliding in the East Bay city of Newark, where the city will consider plans to build housing on one of the few remnants of the Bay’s vast marshland. It’s a fight for the marshes’ future, which environmentalists say should be maintained as natural flood protection.  Links:  Bay Area Housing Project Raises Concerns About Sea-Lev...

Despite the many languages spoken in the Bay Area, Alameda and Solano Counties only send out emergency alerts in English, leaving at least one in ten Bay Area residents at risk of missing life-saving information in the face of disaster. El Timpano senior reporter Jasmine Aguilera explains why that is, and which counties are succeeding in disseminating critical information to everyone.   Links: ALE...

Our beautiful state is in danger. Human-caused climate change has dramatically increased the risk of destructive wildfires — and now we anticipate them every year. So how do we process the grief of what we’re losing? And how can we use that pain as fuel to make change? Links: Grieving California Good Grief Network This episode was produced by Maria Esquinca and Alan Montecillo, and hosted by Erick...

Patti Poppe started a new job as CEO of PG&E in 2021, after the company emerged from bankruptcy for the second time in two decades. She sat down with KQED’s Marisa Lagos and Scott Shafer of the Political Breakdown podcast to discuss the future of the utility. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The California State University system is the largest public university system in the nation. This week, faculty at four campuses — Cal Poly Pomona, San Francisco State, Cal State Los Angeles, and Sacramento State — launched a series of 1-day strikes. KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara takes us to Tuesday’s strike at SF State, where faculty and staff say they’re fed up with working conditions, low pay, and l...

Brooklyn Basin is poised to become Oakland’s largest housing project, promising 3,700 new homes on the site of a former shipping dock. In a state where building just about anything can be a challenge, how did this one finally get off the ground? Links: Episode transcript Oakland's Largest Housing Project Aims to Build 3,700 Homes On-Site This episode was produced by Alan Montecillo and Maria Esqui...

California Forever, the group of Silicon Valley investors and billionaires who want to build a new city from scratch in Solano County, are on something of a public relations campaign. The group held its first town hall meeting in Vallejo on Wednesday night. And it will be the first of many — because if they really want to build a new city on the county’s outskirts, they’ll need to win over the hea...

San Francisco has banned street vending on Mission Street for 90 days, citing concerns about crime and sales of stolen goods. It’s the latest in a long saga around public safety in the neighborhood. KQED’s Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman explains how we got here and what this means for vendors. Links:  Episode transcript KQED: SF’s Mission Street Ban Begins KQED: On First Day of Mission Street Vending Ban,...

In this edition of The Bay's monthly news roundup (our last one of the year!), Ericka, Maria and Alan talk about how public transit agencies have temporarily averted a fiscal cliff, a proposal to increase the minimum wage for incarcerated workers, and the newly unveiled Tupac Shakur Way in Oakland. Links:  Episode transcript In Transit: Bay Area Transportation News on Everything That Moves KQED: C...

Starting in January, PG&E ratepayers can expect their monthly bills to increase by an average of about $30. The utility says the money will go toward important infrastructure projects, including work on power lines that will reduce the risk of wildfires. But is this the best way to pay for it? Links: PG&E Gets Green Light to Raise Rates for Wildfire Prevention Efforts Episode transcript This episo...

As an anxious, homeschooled kid, Mychal Threets found a haven in his local public library. Now he’s a librarian in Fairfield, and he’s recently become famous for talking about his passion for books and libraries on TikTok. In this episode we’re re-running from Rightnowish, host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena talk to Threets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.f...

Last year, Oakland returned 5 acres of Joaquin Miller Park to the Sogorea Te’ land trust and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, marking the first time a Bay Area city has given land back to Native Americans. Despite no significant opposition to this plan, the process took more than 5 years. So what does it actually take to give land back? This episode originally aired on Nov. 28, 2022. Episode t...

Last summer, Ericka told a story live on stage at KQED, at an event hosted by the San Francisco chapter of the Asian American Journalists’ Association called “Hella Asian.” It’s a story about a camping trip she went on with her best friend during the pandemic. It’s also a story about the mental impact of the news, and her sense of safety as attacks on Asians were in the headlines. Today, we’re sha...

With thousands of people taking to the streets on either side of the issue of Israel’s siege of Gaza, how are the Bay Area’s representatives in Congress weighing their position on the issue? Links: Apply to be our intern! This episode was produced by Maria Esquinca, Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Guy Marzorati, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

In January, a gunman killed 7 farmworkers at two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay. Months later, one community group has been trying to use accordion classes as a way to help farmworkers heal from the trauma. Links: Apply to be our intern! Episode transcript This episode was produced by Alan Montecillo and Maria Esquinca, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

A quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from homes and buildings -- from the appliances we use to keep ourselves warm and our families fed. In this episode of KQED’s Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America, we head to a neighborhood in Oakland that is taking a revolutionary approach to reducing their emissions: by electrifying together, all at once. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Next week, San Francisco is hosting its largest international event since 1945. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference — or APEC — is expected to bring tens of thousands of visitors and foreign dignitaries to the city. With lots to prove to its guests, including President Joe Biden, San Francisco has ramped up preparations that have already affected local residents. Links: Apply to be ou...

As red states pass laws targeting transgender rights and LGBTQ-inclusive education, conservatives in the South Bay have formed their own strategy: focusing on local, nonpartisan school board races. Episode transcript This episode was produced by Maria Esquinca and Alan Montecillo, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Foster City is home to one of the largest annual gatherings of Palestinians in the Bay Area. It’s also where Councilmember Sam Hindi holds office as the only current elected official of Palestinian heritage in the region. Today, we talk with Hindi about how the war in Gaza has affected him — as an elected official, as a father, and as a Palestinian-American. This episode was produced by Alan Monte...