Kqeds Forum

Palo Alto officials next month plan to reopen University Avenue and some other streets that had been closed to car traffic during the pandemic. Some retailers say turning streets into outdoor dining areas has hurt their businesses by reducing parking spaces and covering up storefronts. Meanwhile many restaurant owners, especially those who invested in furniture and parklets, want to keep streets closed to continue serving customers outside. Various cities are facing similar dilemmas about whether to reopen streets and effective ways to support businesses. We’ll talk about how cities and residents are rethinking uses for public roadways and spaces. 

California's conditional release program, known as CONREP, is supposed to enable patients leaving state psychiatric hospitals to transition to an independent life and avoid violent relapses. But a new investigation by The Marshall Project and the Los Angeles Times found that CONREP can put former patients in a decades-long legal limbo during which the state dictates where they live, whether they can work and whom they can see -- even requiring permission for activities like creative writing or joining a book group. Those in CONREP are disproportionately people of color. We'll talk to Marshall Project staff writer Christie Thompson about what she uncovered.

The ESPN 30 for 30 podcast, “The King of Crenshaw,” examines the life and legacy of hip hop artist, entrepreneur and son of South Los Angeles Nipsey Hussle told through the lens of his close relationships with professional basketball players. Hosted by Justin Tinsley, a senior writer for ESPN’s The Undefeated, the four-part series explores black male friendship, grief, resilience -- and the responsibility that comes with “making it out” of a poor neighborhood and giving back. Hussle was not only famous for his music, but also for the way he used his fame to contribute to his South L.A. neighborhood, mapping out a vision for land ownership and community empowerment before he was tragically murdered in 2019 at 33 years old. It was that spirit and dedication that influenced fellow entertainers and NBA athletes who come from similar backgrounds. Tinsley joins us to discuss “The King of Crenshaw.”

Images of border patrol agents on horses forcibly beating back Haitian asylum seekers at the Mexican border have been igniting outrage. It’s just the latest refugee crisis that critics say the U.S. has handled poorly. This week on Forum we’ll talk with members of the Bay Area’s Haitian, Afghan, and Central American communities to discuss conditions in their countries and the struggle to gain refugee status. First, to launch the series, we look at the origins of international asylum policy, which was established after the US rejected Jews fleeing the Holocaust. We’ll discuss how the U.S asylum rules have morphed over the decades and how we’ve made decisions about who should be let in and why.

Haiti is grappling with an unprecedented environmental crisis after a recent hurricane and earthquake. A political crisis following the assassination of the Haitian president has left the Haitian people with a crashing economy, and violence. After the U.S. began deporting some of the approximately 13,000 Haitian migrants to have arrived at the Mexican border, the U.S. special envoy for Haiti resigned in protest, citing the “inhumane” treatment of Haitian migrants at the border as well as the decision to deport them as they flee political and environmental devastation. We speak with Bay Area resident Claude-Alix Bertrand, Haiti’s ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to get his thoughts on the Haitian migration crisis.

Everything has a story — including that street couch in your neighborhood. As USC professor and creator of streetcouch.com Keith Plocek puts it: “Just think of all the sitting. All the conversations. All the silences. Life. Death. Butts. Pets.” And then one day, that piece of furniture ends up on the street and a new story begins — a lucky find for someone, a new canvas for a graffiti artist or an addition to the landfill. In a recent story for the Los Angeles Times, reporter Julissa James explored the range of experiences with street furniture, from the joy of a good find and refurbishing job to the queasy questioning of what’s in those cushions, especially in the age of COVID-19. We’ll talk about the culture of street furniture and hear your street furniture stories.

A recently-surfaced memo written by conservative lawyer John Eastman revealed a detailed plan for the Trump administration to overturn President Joe Biden’s election. The document included a six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election in early 2021, including throwing out legal ballots in seven states. The explicit nature of these strategies from President Trump’s legal team shows the stopgaps and weaknesses in our nation’s election laws. We talk to Washington Post reporter Philip Bump and Politico reporter Nicholas Wu about how we might address the loopholes that President Trump sought to exploit, and discuss whether formerly-establishment figures like Eastman may face any fallout or punishment.

Berkeley’s influential Chez Panisse restaurant has turned 50. The restaurant transformed food culture in the Bay Area and put California, and farm to table cuisine, on the global culinary map. We talk with founder Alice Waters, and chefs and food producers who got their start at the restaurant, about the history and legacy of Chez Panisse and the future of the ecosystem of farms, food and restaurants it inspired.

Most of the 70,000 survivors of wildfires sparked by PG&E equipment between 2015 and 2018, have yet to see any of the promised $13.5 billion settlement with the utility. Now, attorneys in a burgeoning wildfire litigation arena are working fast to hang their shingles in towns like Quincy and Susanville, where many wildfire evacuees -- trapped in motels or staying with friends-- try to figure out their next steps. The lawyers promise big settlements out of PG&E. But many families who once turned to these same lawyers after losing homes and loved ones to previous wildfires, still sleep in cars and trailers and are warning recent wildfire survivors to beware of unkept promises from the legal profession.

Last December, Forum spoke to four nurses and doctors on the frontlines of COVID care in California. At the time, cases were surging statewide, and no vaccines were available. They described heartbreaking patient deaths, overflowing ICUs and the heavy emotional toll of their work. The same healthcare workers join us again, nine months later, to share what has improved and the profound challenges that remain for those caring for the sickest patients.

The word freedom can be used in so many ways, sometimes at cross purposes. There are those who defend the freedom to remain unvaccinated, others the freedom to move in the world without excess risk. “Can you think of a more depleted, imprecise, or weaponized word?” writes author and Bay Area native Maggie Nelson in her new essay collection, “On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint”. Nelson probes the idea of freedom in the context of some of the most charged disagreements of our age, including around climate change, sexuality, addiction and more. She joins us to share what freedom means to her and why she sees it as “an unending present practice, something already going on.”

"Life is something we need to stop correcting." That's what Theo, the single astrobiologist father who narrates Richard Powers's latest novel, thinks when doctors try to prescribe medication for Robin, his passionately curious and emotionally volatile young son. But as Robin continues to lash out, Theo enrolls him in an experimental brain therapy that expands his empathic abilities and sharpens his scientific gifts. The novel, informed in part by the classic story "Flowers for Algernon," explores what Powers calls the bafflement of empathy -- whether we would have to give up being ourselves in order to understand someone who isn't us." We talk with Powers about "Bewilderment."

When the KNP Complex fire, which has burned about 40 square miles in the Western Sierra, began spreading through Sequoia National Park, firefighters mobilized to preserve the park's groves of ancient sequoia trees. Among the trees imperiled by the still uncontained fire, was General Sherman, the world's largest tree. We’ll hear about firefighters’ extraordinary efforts to save the giants, including wrapping them in aluminum blankets. And we’ll also talk about what a future of climate-intensified fires means for the iconic sequoias.

In the 2020 Census, the number of Latinos who selected “white” as their race dropped to 20% from 53% in 2010, at the same time more Latinos selected “two or more races” or “other” as their racial category. Experts say this indicates an evolution in Latinos' complicated relationship with race. The terms Latino and Hispanic emerged as categories in the U.S. Census decades ago, but the way the categories are presented on forms has been a source of controversy and confusion for just as long. Latinos come from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds, so the concept of a diverse group under one umbrella can be just as problematic as it can be empowering. We dive into the nuances of racial identity and how perceptions of race are shifting among Latinx people.

For years, top officials at Facebook have been aware of the platform's adverse impacts on users, and they've turned a blind eye to company employees who've tried to push for change. That's according to a new Wall Street Journal investigation that uncovered internal documents suggesting the company willfully disregarded reports that it's harming teens' mental health and failing to stop the spread of misinformation. In a blog post, Facebook said the investigation deliberately mischaracterized the company's actions and "conferred egregiously false motives" on its leadership. We'll talk to the reporters behind the investigation about what they learned.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a set of housing bills last week that aim to increase the state’s housing inventory and return attention to his ambitious goals to build more housing. In 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, Newsom called for California to build roughly 500,000 new homes per year to reach a goal of 3.5 million new housing units by 2025. Meanwhile, California has on average added less than 100,000 units of housing per year for the past decade, according to CalMatters. Experts say some of the new housing laws, SB 8, SB 9, SB 10 could usher in hundreds of thousands of new homes over time by making it easier to build more units on lots previously designated solely for single-family homes. We talk about whether these laws will increase housing supply, how they could influence housing prices, and how they could change the look and feel of neighborhoods across the state.

In a new cover story for The Atlantic, writer Hannah Giorgis looks critically at Hollywood’s writers’ rooms and how most of them look nothing like America. Documenting the history of Black writers who have navigated predominantly white writers’ rooms -- often confronting implicit and explicit biases -- Giorgis reveals the renaissance of onscreen representation they helped bring to television. Still, Hollywood remains an industry dominated by white men, and that continues to impact the hiring of offscreen Black talent and who’s at the table. We’ll talk to Giorgis about whether the tide is really turning in Hollywood when it comes to diverse representation -- not only in the stories we tell, but who’s telling them.   

It may come as a surprise to some of the region’s urban dwellers that more than 1000 miles of trails outline the San Francisco Bay. Running along the water’s edge through nine counties, the Bay trail passes by museums, bars, and parks ready for kite flying. And the Ridge trail circumnavigates the Bay at a higher elevation, offering 365 degree views across the region. We’ll hear about the provenance and evolution of these two different but precious hiking and biking resources, and what they mean to the region.

President Joe Biden stopped construction on Trump’s signature wall along the southern border, but he’s asking for more than a billion dollars in his proposed budget for border infrastructure including modern security technology to bolster a “smart wall” increasingly reliant on surveillance tech that backers in Congress have called an effective and humane approach. But critics say the use of facial recognition software, license plate readers, ground sensors and mobile surveillance towers that send alerts to border agents are part of an increasingly militarized border that drives migrants to deadlier paths and imperils the privacy rights of residents near the border. We’ll talk about the new approach to border security and the private defense surveillance tech industry that benefits from it.

One of the key action scenes in the new Marvel Studios film, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” involves a city bus losing control on California Street in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood. Other scenes are filmed in the city’s Richmond District -- not a typical locale for a major Hollywood production. The film, released Sept. 3, celebrates San Francisco and Asian Americans in other ways as well. We’ll talk about San Francisco’s role in the movie, which is already one of the year’s biggest hits.