Kqeds Forum

Wildfires raging across northern California forced thousands to flee their homes Wednesday morning.  The most urgent situation unfolded in Vacaville, where a group of fires called the LNU Lightning Complex more than doubled in size overnight and destroyed over 50 homes and threatened nearly 2,000 more. Along with hot temperatures and low humidity, the fires are in part due to a “historic lightning siege,” which, according to Cal Fire chief Jeremy Rahn, included about 10,849 lightening strikes and caused over 367 fires across the state. Smoke from the fires has resulted in poor air quality across the Bay Area bringing the air quality index in San Francisco and Oakland to levels considered unhealthy for sensitive groups. We’ll get the latest on the region’s wildfires.

While rotating power outages were averted on Monday, by Tuesday afternoon the California Independent System Operator, which manages the state's power grid, had again declared a "Stage 2" emergency and said outages were "imminent." California ISO later canceled that emergency and praised consumers for conserving energy that helped avoid another outage. The continuing heat wave sparked two nights of rolling blackouts over the weekend, which Gov. Newsom called "unacceptable and unbefitting of the nation’s largest and most innovative state." Newsom called for an investigation into why California ISO imposed the outages. We'll get the latest news on what’s happening with the state’s energy supply. And we want to hear from you: have you been impacted by the power outages?

On Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its final report detailing its three-year investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff, who led President Trump's impeachment trial, says that the bipartisan report "affirms what we have all known for years" about Trump's vast network of contacts among Russian operatives and makes clear that his campaign's engagement with the Russians was a major counterintelligence threat. We'll talk to Congressman Schiff about the committee's report, and we'll get his take on the federal coronavirus response, including lawmakers' proposals for a new COVID-19 relief bill.

In the wake of the 2018 Camp Fire that decimated the Northern California city of Paradise, PG&E officials framed such devastating blazes as a relatively new phenomenon exacerbated by climate change. A Frontline/KQED investigation found that in reality, PG&E was well aware of the threat and resisted implementing safety protocols to prevent wildfires for more than a decade. The investigation uncovered repeated pushback against regulations that perhaps could have saved lives. Also at fault is the California Public Utilities Commission, which was too overwhelmed and under-resourced to properly regulate PG&E. We discuss the investigation as we head into yet another wildfire season

On Tuesday, U.S. Postal Service postmaster general Louis DeJoy announced that he would suspend until after the November election operational reforms and initiatives “to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.”  Meanwhile, California and at least 20 other states will sue the Trump administration over those reforms--which include removal of mailboxes, sorting equipment and the elimination of staff overtime--in order to protect against service delays.  The moves come amid ongoing accusations by Democrats that the Trump Administration is refusing to fund the cash-strapped agency to subvert mail-in voting this fall.  We’ll get the latest.

The right to vote is a fundamental part of democracy -- a right, however, that hasn't always been afforded or guaranteed to all in the United States. August 18 marks the 100th anniversary of the day Congress passed the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. It was a hard-fought victory, but still only a starting place for Black women and other women of color. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 later sought to make access to the vote more fair and complete for all, but a key part of the law was struck down in 2013 and legislation to restore it remains in limbo as voter suppression efforts grow. This hour we'll talk to Carol Anderson, historian and author of "One Person, No Vote," about the state of voting rights and the significance of women's suffrage, then and now.

Students with disabilities in California will be able to receive face-to-face instruction at schools this fall. Gov. Gavin Newsom and State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond made the announcement Friday and acknowledged that some students with special needs are unable to adjust to distance learning. Families and students with learning disabilities and autism as well as students in foster care struggled when schools shut down last spring. We’ll hear about the unique challenges of remote learning for students with disabilities and what solutions are in the works.

In June 2018, NBC News and MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff became one of the first journalists allowed entry into Casa Padre, a Texas facility holding more than 1,400 migrant boys who’d been separated from their families at the Mexican border. The horror he experienced reporting on that facility formed the basis of his new book “Separated: Inside An American Tragedy,” which documents the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance family separation policy during 2017 and 2018. We’ll talk about the political forces behind the policy, how it ended and why Soboroff considers it “one of the most shameful chapters in modern American history.”

A new KQED investigation finds that more than a third of senior care facilities are at heightened risk for wildfires. Many aren't ready for emergencies.  That risk will continue to grow as California’s population ages. Officials estimate that, a decade from now, there will be 8.6 million residents over age 65, increasing the demand for home health and long-term care services. The coronavirus pandemic makes it even harder for facilities to prepare for wildfire emergencies -- efforts many say were insufficient. We’ll hear about KQED’s investigation.

Why comedy, and why now? That's the question that media and social change scholar Caty Borum Chattoo poses at the outset of her book, "A Comedian and An Activist Walk Into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice." In it she and co-author Lauren Feldman explore how comedy -- by laying bare freighted issues like racism, sexism and inequality -- can help us work toward bridging divides and achieving social change. We'll talk about how comedy helps us make sense of a world turned chaotic by the pandemic and a deeply divisive government, and we want to hear from you: which comedians do you turn to these days, and why?

After following the notoriously bad relationship between baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent as well as the meteoric path of the Giants, Bay Area based sports writer Joan Ryan grew curious about team chemistry and how it affects performance.   She spent ten years probing sociology, neuroscience and psychology to answer questions about whether team chemistry was real. And if so, what is it exactly? And how do you measure it?  Ryan joins us to talk about the importance of sports during the pandemic,  how our interactions affect our performance on non-athletic teams -- as friends, colleagues, and family, and her new book, “Intangibles: Unlocking the Science and Soul of Team Chemistry”.

As President Trump counters calls to defund the police and end systemic racism with demands for “law and order,” many Americans feel the country is deeply divided and broken. Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris attributes this division, as well as issues like mass incarceration and economic inequality, to a “framework of fear” that has grown between fellow Americans. In his new book, “‘We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities,” Norris outlines a path for America to move from an “us vs. them” mentality towards a “culture of care”. Zach Norris joins Forum to discuss the book, address the systemic issues raising his concern, and to outline his vision for public safety.

By now, people are becoming used to seeing social media posts and articles about their favorite businesses closing for good. Thousands of beloved Bay Area enterprises from restaurants and boutiques to independent movie theaters and corner stores have shut down during the coronavirus pandemic. Some owners thought they could ride out shelter-in-place orders, but no longer see a viable future or couldn’t afford carrying costs. The end of a business often spells the end of a dream, a community, years of hard work, and livelihoods of owners and workers. We’ll hear the stories of Bay Area business owners and how this wave of closures could reshape the region’s economy.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 97,000 Americans aged 18 and younger tested positive for Covid-19 in the last two weeks of July, representing a 40% increase in total pediatric cases in the U.S. Infected children are usually asymptomatic or have only minor symptoms, but the CDC reports that a small percentage may become severely ill. The CDC also reports that hospitalization rates among Black and Latinx children are, respectively, nearly eight times and five times the rates of white children. We'll discuss the CDC's findings and how best to keep kids -- and those around them -- safe.

In a long awaited decision, democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has selected California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Harris will be the first woman of color to appear on a major party's presidential ticket. A Bay Area native, Harris drew on her childhood experience of being bused across Berkeley for school as part of a pointed attack against then-rival Joe Biden during her presidential bid last year. Forum will talk about what her record as a senator, prosecutor and as California’s attorney general will bring to the Democratic ticket, the politics of the pick and what it could mean for California.

In the next 50 years, more than a million climate migrants could come to the United States from Central America if nothing is done to curb carbon emissions. That’s according to a new model that predicts where refugees from regions decimated by decreased crop productivity, water shortages and rising sea levels may move.  The model, developed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, finds that climate change will likely cause “the greatest wave of global migration the world has seen.”  Forum talks with ProPublica environmental reporter Abrahm Lustgarten about future climate migration and the experiences of those who have already left their homes because of the changes caused by a warming planet.

By the 2070s, climate change will reduce snowpack and increase extreme rainfall in the Sierra Nevada and California’s reservoirs will likely be overwhelmed. That’s according to a new study by UCLA climate scientists, who predict that run-off during so-called atmospheric rivers  will increase by nearly 50 percent, leading to widespread flooding across the state. We’ll talk about the impact of climate change on Sierra weather patterns and what it all means for the state’s water supply.

In her new book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents an examination of what she sees as America’s often disguised, but very real, caste system. The book compares America’s system with those in India and Nazi Germany, and delves into how America betrays its ideals of meritocracy by instead cultivating an insidious hierarchy based on race. “Caste” is a much anticipated follow up to Wilkerson’s 2011 book “The Warmth of Other Suns,” which detailed the decades-long migration of black people from the South to other regions of the country. Wilkerson joins Forum to discuss her new book and how America’s past relates to its future. 

A close friendship can be one of the most fulfilling, and most challenging, relationships of our lives. In their book “Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close,” writers and longtime friends Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman share their honest and humorous account of what it really takes to maintain a meaningful bond -- from moments of being totally in sync to painful disagreements and everything in between. We'll talk to Sow and Friedman about the lessons they've learned together and hear your stories of big friendships that transcend life phases.

In his new book "The Madman Theory," CNN anchor and Chief National Security correspondent Jim Sciutto highlights how President Trump’s unpredictable behavior--including threats to meet North Korea with “fire and fury” and to pull the U.S. out of NATO and NAFTA--have unnerved enemies and allies alike. Sciutto discusses how Trump’s volatility has led advisers to hesitate in giving the President military options because they feared he could start a war.  We'll talk to Sciutto about the lasting imprint Trump has left on the world after four years in office, and get his take on how that will shape America’s place in the world.