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Bay Area-raised host Ericka Cruz Guevarra talks with local journalists about what’s happening in the greatest region in the country. It’s the context and analysis you need to make sense of the news, with help from the people who know it best. New episodes drop Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.
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This month, the United States Postal Service unveiled a new set of stamps honoring the lowrider community. This federal recognition comes three years after California lifted a decades-old ban on lowrider cruising. The state, widely understood as the birthplace of lowrider culture, has also historically been unfriendly to it. For decades, lowriding was blamed for traffic and alleged connections to gang violence. KQED’s Paloma Yaritza Abarca explains the years-long fight by community members to let their cars ride freely.
This episode originally aired Nov 3, 2023.
Links:
The Provocative, Rebellious and Flamboyant Origins of Lowriding | KQED
For Lowriders in San Francisco, It’s Not Just a Stamp — It’s Respect at the Federal Level
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A New York Times investigation published Wednesday revealed that iconic farmworker organizer Cesar Chavez sexually abused women and underage girls for years. Chavez, who died in 1993, is honored and memorialized in public schools, street names, and buildings across California and the Bay Area. The news has sent shockwaves throughout the state, especially among Latino and labor organizers.
Links:
César Chavez Was a Hero to Farmworkers. Now They Confront the Pain of Alleged Abuse | KQED
California Weighs Renaming Parks, Streets After Cesar Chavez Amid Abuse Allegations | KQED
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Artificial intelligence has rapidly changed what tech workers in the Bay Area do every day. Whether you’re a software engineer or you work in sales, most employees at tech firms are expected to regularly use AI.
Rya Jetha with the San Francisco Standard explains how AI is affecting tech employees across the industry, and how these changes could be a sign of what’s to come for the rest of us.
Links:
AI writes the code now. What’s left for software engineers?
‘Engineer’ is so 2025. In AI land, everyone’s a ‘builder’ now
AI is booming. Tech jobs in San Francisco are not
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Engineered stone, or quartz, is a man-made material made with high concentrations of silica that is commonly used to make kitchen countertops in the U.S. And it’s making the workers who cut this material sick. And even though California has safety rules in place to reduce the risk to workers, some say it’s time to ban the use of engineered stone altogether.
This episode first aired on Dec. 15, 2025.
Links:
Doctors say measures to control an incurable lung disease aren't enough : NPR
As Lung Disease Threatens Workers, Lawmakers Seek Protections for Countertop Manufacturers - KFF Health News
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On Thursday, thousands of people gathered in Oakland to welcome home Olympic figure skater and gold medalist Alysa Liu, who won the women’s singles gold medal in the 2026 Winter Olympics last month. Liu, who was born in Richmond and grew up training in Oakland, is the first American woman to win gold in her sport since 2002.
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With Gov. Gavin Newsom limited to two terms, California’s got a wide open governor’s race. Eight Democrats and two Republicans will be on the ballot in the June primary; from there, the top two finishers, regardless of party, will head to a runoff in November. KQED’s Guy Marzorati explains why this governor’s race is the most wide-open in decades.
Links:
California’s Governor’s Race Is Breaking an 80-Year Political Mold | KQED
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West Oakland’s 18th Street is one of the city’s most dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers, with wide lanes, hidden stop signs, and virtually nonexistent crosswalks in a residential area. It's one of many Oakland roads that has not been fixed for decades.
Now, improvements are finally coming to 18th Street. The Oaklandside’s Jose Fermoso joins us to talk about what changes are on the horizon, and how upgrading roads can pave the way for broader changes in the city.
Links:
18th St. is one of Oakland’s most dangerous. Here’s how the city is fixing it
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The 67 is Muni’s most delayed bus line, snaking through the hills along Alemany Boulevard and Bernal Heights, ending at the 24th and Mission BART station. However unreliable it can be, it still serves an estimated 800 daily riders. But as SFMTA faces a budget deficit of more than $300 million in July, the 67 and other bus lines are at risk of disappearing if voters don’t approve ballot measures to fund transit this November.
Links:
It’s San Francisco’s Most Delayed Bus. For Riders, a Frustrating Problem May Get Worse
Amid Bid to Save Bay Area Transit, Muni Gets a Campaign of Its Own
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Many Iranian Americans across California are still in disbelief after the U.S. and Israel launched military strikes in Iran over the weekend. On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who ruled the Islamic Republic of Iran for nearly a half century. Hundreds more have been killed, including at least 6 American military servicemembers. Some Iranian Americans are overjoyed at the death of Khamenei, while others are critical of the U.S. and Israel’s involvement in yet another war in the Middle East.
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San Francisco’s immigration courts are being hollowed out by the Trump Administration, with plans to close one of the courts downtown by the end of the year. Mission Local’s Clara-Sophia Daly explains how day to day operations — including asylum hearings — have changed.
Links:
Inside San Francisco’s hollowed-out immigration court, where asylum is ‘essentially over’
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In this month’s edition of The Bay’s monthly news roundup we discuss the effect of the booming AI industry on San Francisco’s rental market, Rep. Jared Huffman’s visit to his “radically redrawn” district since the passage of Prop. 50, and the revelation that Waymo employs remote workers in the Philippines.
Links:
AI is pushing S.F. rents higher and higher. Here’s how tenants are dealing (Mission Local)
In his radically redrawn new district, a Marin congressman gets thrown to the wolves (San Francisco Chronicle)
Here’s How Many Remote Operators Waymo Has Per Self-Driving Taxi (Futurism)
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Search and rescue crews have recovered all 9 bodies of those killed in last Tuesday’s avalanche in Tahoe, which is now the deadliest in California’s modern history. Four of the victims were women from the Bay Area.
KQED’s Sarah Wright explains what we know so far, and how this tragedy highlights the Bay Area’s deep ties to outdoor recreation in Tahoe.
Links:
After Deadly Tahoe Avalanche, Backcountry Skiing Is Under Scrutiny. Here’s What to Know
All 9 Tahoe Avalanche Victims Identified and Bodies Recovered
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For several weeks, a red pay phone sat outside a tattoo parlor in San Francisco’s Mission District — with a sign reading ‘Call a Republican.’ If you picked it up, a blue pay phone with the sign ‘Call a Democrat’ in the conservative city of Abilene, Texas would ring.
This project, created by a company called Matter Neuroscience, aimed to connect Americans from vastly different backgrounds via the old-fashioned phone.
Links:
What Happens When Democrats in San Francisco Call Up Republicans in Texas? It’s Pretty Cordial | KQED
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If you’ve noticed more crows in the night sky this winter, you’re not imagining it. The Bay Area crow population has been on a steady rise since about 1975 — and after 2000 or so, the population exploded. So what’s behind the boom?
This episode of Bay Curious first aired on June 6, 2019.
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Nearly 31,000 health care workers with the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals have been on strike for the last four weeks. Nurses, physicians assistants, pharmacists and other workers at Kaiser Permanente say that their wages have not kept up with inflation and that their workloads have negatively impacted patient care. As the strike drags on and negotiations continue to stall, more patients face canceled surgeries and appointments without an end in sight.
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Silicon Valley once resisted cooperating with the U.S. military. Google, Meta and OpenAI even had policies banning the use of AI in weapons.
Those days now feel like a bygone era, as Big Tech has now embraced working closely with the federal government during President Donald Trump's second term, in large part due to lucrative contracts for military and surveillance technology.
This episode first aired on Sept. 3, 2025.
Links:
The Militarization of Silicon Valley
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We're working on an episode about making friends in the Bay Area. And we want your help.
What's it been like for you to make friends here? How'd you do it? Is there anything about life in the Bay that makes it easier or harder to meet people?
Let us know your thoughts. You can do that in one of two ways:
Leave us a voicemail at 415-710-9223
Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to thebay@kqed.org
We might just reach back out for an upcoming episode. We can't wait to hear from you!
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The Venezuelan diaspora in the Bay Area is relatively small. Of the estimated 770,000 Venezuelan natives living in the United States in 2024, only about 23,000 — or 3% — are in California, according to the Migration Policy Institute. But as the country’s political turmoil continues to make headlines, a nonprofit called Dulce Tricolor Venezolano is committed to keeping their culture alive and building community through teaching traditional dance.
Links:
Venezuelan Dance Group in the Bay Area Keeps Culture Alive for a New Generation
Subscribe to KQED’s K Onda newsletter
Dulce Tricolor Venezolano
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On Monday, teachers at San Francisco Unified School District went on strike for the first time since 1979. The district and the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) remain apart on issues like wage increases and family health care. We talk with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jill Tucker about the impact on families, and why teacher strikes seem to be spreading across California.
Links:
San Francisco Teachers Strike: What Should Families Know? | KQED
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Since San José Mayor Matt Mahan took office in 2023, the city has dramatically shifted the city’s approach to homelessness from building permanent affordable housing to building more temporary shelters, with the goal of getting people off the street faster.
Now, as he eyes the governor's office, we look into how his signature homelessness program is going.
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awesome podcast thank you !!!
what an amazing wonderful informative high quality podcast !!! thank you soooo much !!!!
this episode is not about green infrastructure
this episode is not about banning flavored tobacco
Listened to this tonight and I just want to say I am grateful for nurses like her. Her story of the AIDS patient she stood by meant a lot. That’s such strong and stalwart kindness in a time when fear and ignorance around the last massively scary disease happened in the US. We stayed away from family because of COVID. Hearing her story only amplified who needs us to stay extra cautious right now—the nurses and doctors and EMTs who are going to be by our bedside if we don’t.
I love this podcast! I listen to it every morning using my Alexa. I’ve even gone to a few of the community events they’ve held and met the creators. I love how passionate they are about reporting from the people who are effected by the news. Great local show!
Typical Berkeley: love the poor, until you have to look at them 🙄 How about increasing housing supply so the rates arent astronomical and people dont have to live in fucking RVs? Oh that would affect the "character" of the neighborhood? I guess the poor just dont deserve housing, how progressive