The Bay

A group of homeowners sued over UC Berkeley's plans to increase enrollment, claiming that the university has not adequately studied the environmental impacts of a higher student population. This legal battle has been going on for years, but in the last few weeks it's gotten national attention. That's because the courts recently ruled against the university, which is now required to cap enrollment...

Since the summer of 2020, SFUSD has seen waves of protests against sexual harassment and assault. Students say a familiar pattern has emerged: survivors share experiences of sexual abuse on Instagram, more people pay attention and talk about it, and then the conversation dies down for a few months. But the issue is still on many students' minds. And while some changes have been made — including so...

KQED’s Nastia Voynovskaya was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. In the late 90s, she and her family immigrated to the Bay Area. Growing up, Nastia’s community included Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Georgians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, and many other ethnic groups from the former Soviet Union. Now, as Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, communities of immigrants from the former Soviet Union are speakin...

Valero’s Benicia oil refinery is one of the largest refineries in the state. And from 2003 to 2018, it secretly released excessive amounts of hazardous chemicals into the air before Bay Area regulators found out and investigated. Meanwhile, local officials and the broader community were only informed this year.  Guest: Ted Goldberg, KQED supervising senior editor for news Episode Transcript Links:...

Reparations in California is a series of KQED stories exploring the road to racial equity in the state. California is in the process of a first-of-its-kind study into reparations for Black Californians. The process of hashing out reparations can seem daunting. and the U.S. has not fully reckoned with its deepest harms, like enslavement of Black Americans or the genocide of Native Americans. Howeve...

On Wednesday night, Berkeleyside journalist Ally Markovich sat in front of her living room TV with her housemates and watched as Russian forces invaded Ukraine, where she was born. Ally is one of the more than 100,000 Ukrainian Americans living in California — roughly 20,000 of whom live in the Bay Area. She, like other members of the diaspora here, are watching and worrying for the safety of peop...

Living with climate change means we’re going to have to plan for more disasters. That includes things like emergency shelters, food, and financial help.  But there are many people who don't feel safe or welcome accessing help when disaster does strike — including queer people. New research from Yale University, the University of Georgia and UC Irvine found LGBTQ+ communities are rendered invisible...

San Francisco voters decided overwhelmingly to recall 3 board of education members from office: Board of Education President Gabriela López and commissioners Faauuga Moliga and Alison Collins. That leaves Mayor London Breed with the unilateral decision of who should replace them. Whoever the mayor picks will have many difficult issues to tackle, including hiring a superintendent and hashing out th...

Antioch has been a destination for Bay Area residents looking for affordable housing. But now, it’s at the center of a growing eviction crisis.  In the first episode of the newest season of SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America, KQED housing reporters Molly Solomon and Erin Baldassari take us to the Sycamore Corridor in Antioch, where renters are fighting for protections like never before. Learn...

California is in limbo with the death penalty. We have an execution moratorium, and no one has been put to death in the state since 2006. But it’s still legal to sentence someone to die, which means there are hundreds of people sitting on death row, often in solitary confinement. But a move by Gov. Gavin Newsom begins to chip away at this system. The nation’s largest death row at San Quentin State...

Over the past few weeks, students, families and educators in Oakland have pushed back hard against plans by OUSD's Board of Education to close or merge public schools. A majority of board members say the closures are necessary to address the district's budget problems. But they've faced fierce opposition from many local residents. Two educators, Moses Omolade and Andre San-Chez, have also been on...

Way more people gotten sick with COVID-19 during these past few weeks. If you've tested positive, you may have felt a range of emotions: Surprise, fear...even anger. There's also another emotion members of KQED's audience are reporting: shame. For some, it's a gut feeling upon seeing that "positive" result. Others also fear being judged by their peers after being careful for so long. Today, we're...

A proposal to spread the gig economy to health care could be on the ballot this fall. A group calling itself Californians for Equitable Healthcare Access has filed a measure to classify nurses, dental hygienists, occupational therapists and other health care workers who find work online as independent contractors. The law firm that submitted this proposal also worked on Proposition 22, which allow...

A conservation group representing Northern California tribes has gotten 523 acres of land back. The Sinkyone call the land Tc'ih-Léh-Dûñ, meaning "Fish Run Place,” located about 170 miles north of San Francisco in northern Mendocino County. It's a pristine, ecologically rich area that Indigenous people lived in for thousands of years before white settlers violently displaced them. Guest: Matthew G...

The recall election of 3 San Francisco Board of Education members has motivated many Chinese voters to get involved in local politics for the first time. Early evidence suggests that much of this enthusiasm is coming from the "yes" side of the campaign. So why and how is this election speaking to first-time Chinese voters? Guests: Han Li, reporter with the San Francisco Standard and Scott Shafer,...

Whether you have a kid in San Francisco public schools or not, if you’re a registered voter, you’ll have a say in the potential recall of three San Francisco Board of Education commissioners. Voters have between now and Feb. 15 to choose whether to individually vote ‘Yes’ or “No’ on recalling Commissioners Alison Collins, Gabriela Lopez and Faauuga Moliga. Recall supporters say the many SFUSD cont...

Clouds of crows have taken over downtown Sunnyvale like a scene out of The Birds. A combination of factors are leading them there, including the increase of outdoor dining due to the pandemic. Now, the city is trying to figure out how to get them out of the area without harming them. Residents have some strong opinions about it, too. But even if the city successfully drives them out of downtown, t...

We've all had to weigh the risks of leaving our homes during this pandemic that has lasted for nearly 2 years. For lots of people, the risk of getting severely ill from the coronavirus is currently very low, even amid the Omicron surge of the past few weeks. But for many disabled, immunocompromised, and medically vulnerable people, the stakes of getting COVID-19 are still very high. Many also feel...

Trouble could be ahead for Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith. A civil grand jury has accused her office of 7 counts of misconduct related to corruption, and on Wednesday California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that his office is launching a civil rights investigation. It's the latest in a long backstory of officials and members of the public attempting to hold Sheriff Smith accountab...

A self-driving car is not an uncommon sight in San Francisco. And it can feel like more and more of them are out there on the roads. But why? Today, an episode from our friends at Bay Curious about this, and whether we're headed towards a driverless future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. currently has an immigration court backlog that surpasses 1.5 million cases — and that includes many people who are seeking asylum from violence or persecution in their home countries. In northern California, asylum cases are typically heard at an immigration court in San Francisco’s Financial District. That’s where KQED immigration editor Tyche Hendricks met Pablo Lopez, a Nicaraguan man...

On Tuesday, the San José City Council voted to study the possibility of giving noncitizens the right to vote in local elections. Community organizers in the city, where 40% of residents are foreign-born, have talked about the idea for years. They argue it’s time to enfranchise the city’s immigrants, regardless of their citizenship status.  If successful, San Jose would join New York as one of the...

Last week, students, teachers and staff returned to class after the winter holidays…and right in the middle of a record-high surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases across California. The result? Lots of classroom absences and disruptions, thanks to huge numbers of positive cases among students and educators alike. So, what happens next? Guest: Vanessa Rancaño, KQED education reporter This episode was p...

Traxamillion, born Sultan Banks, was a producer from San Jose who helped define the Bay Area’s sound and propelled the Hyphy Movement to the national stage. If there’s a Bay Area hip-hop anthem you love, whether it’s Sideshow, Super Hyphy or San Francisco Anthem, Traxamillion had his fingerprints on it. Traxamillion died on Jan. 2 in Santa Clara from a rare form of cancer at the age of 42. So toda...

Rep. Zoe Lofgren was in the U.S. Capitol a year ago when a mob of Trump supporters, white supremacists, and conspiracy theorists stormed the building to try and overturn the results of the presidential election. Now she’s one of 9 House members — and the only one from the Bay Area — charged with investigating what happened leading up to that day, and who was involved. On this episode, we share an...