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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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Alice Wong, a disability rights activist, writer, and MacArthur Genius award winner based in San Francisco, died last Friday at UCSF at the age of 51. Wong was best known as the founder of the Disability Visibility Project (DVP), a group that highlights disabled people and disability culture through storytelling projects, social media and other channels.
Alice’s friend and fellow activist, Sandy Ho, wrote, “Alice Wong was a hysterical friend, writer, activist and disability justice luminary whose influence was outsized.” Today, we remember Wong by sharing a radio essay she recorded for The California Report Magazine in December 2022.
Alice’s GoFundMe
Disability Rights Activist and Author Alice Wong Dies at 51 | KQED
Bay Area Legends: Activist Alice Wong and The Power of Bringing Visibility to Disability
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President Donald Trump promised to curb inflation and uplift American businesses and the economy when he announced tariffs on hundreds of goods and products earlier this year. Today we talk with The San Francisco Standard’s Jillian D’Onfro, about whether Bay Area businesses say the tariffs have lived up to their promise.
Links:
SF Standard: ‘Devastating’: What 7 months of tariffs have done to one popular business
This episode was hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra and produced by Jessica Kariisa and Alan Montecillo
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The latest Bay Area recall election took place in the Marin County town of Fairfax this November, where some residents hoped to oust the mayor and vice mayor for voting to rezone land for a six-story apartment building.
This time, the recall failed, with roughly 56% of voters opting to keep Mayor Lisel Blash and Vice Mayor Stephanie Hellman. KQED’s Izzy Bloom breaks down this story and explains what this fight over housing in Fairfax could mean for the entire region.
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AI-generated music and artists are now getting record deals and top spots on Billboard charts, with big implications for labor in the music industry. So how are human artists adapting to this rapidly changing landscape?
Links:
AI Is Coming for the Music Industry. How Will Artists Adapt?
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Today, we bring you an episode from our friends at Bay Curious about a secret biological weapons test — in San Francisco. 75 years ago, the U.S. military sprayed bacteria over the city. The test team thought it was harmless, but several people got sick and one person died. KQED’s Katherine Monahan reports on the history and impacts of this operation on one man's family.
Links:
The True Story of the Military's Secret 1950 San Francisco Biological Weapons Test | KQED
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On Wednesday, executives from a group called the Esmeralda Land Company will present their plans to officials in Cloverdale, a small city of roughly 9,000 residents in northern Sonoma County.
The project, titled Esmeralda, is led by Devon Zuegel, a tech worker who hopes to build a hotel, new housing, and a park on a 266-acre piece of land in the southern end of the city. She describes the planned development as a “mini college campus,” reminiscent of the small resort town of Chautauqua, NY.
Some residents, including local officials, are excited about the project and impressed with Esmeralda’s outreach to the community. Others worry that the development will prioritize wealthy Silicon Valley tech-types over Cloverdale residents.
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California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop. 50, which will redraw our Congressional maps in an effort to push back against President Donald Trump. In Santa Clara County, voters also passed a sales tax measure to partially make up for federal funding cuts.
Today, we break down how Prop. 50 will change U.S. House districts in the Bay, Santa Clara County’s Measure A, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s retirement announcement after nearly 40 years representing San Francisco.
Links:
How Proposition 50’s Win Reshapes California’s 2026 Elections | KQED
Nancy Pelosi Retiring After 38 Years Representing San Francisco in Congress | KQED
Santa Clara County Sales Tax Measure Appears Poised to Pass Amid Federal Cuts | KQED
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The ongoing federal government shutdown has reduced and delayed SNAP benefits this month. As a result, food banks in the Bay Area are bracing for an even greater surge in demand. We join Heather Pierini, the executive director of Food Is Free Bay Area, on a donation day at the Solano County Fairgrounds.
Links:
The Bay Area restaurants offering free meals to families using CalFresh
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On Oct. 14, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors removed first-term Sheriff Christina Corpus. For more than a year, her office was mired in allegations of retaliation, misconduct, and abuse of power, largely stemming from an alleged relationship with her former chief of staff, Victor Aenlle. KQED reporter Brian Krans joins us to break down this long and bitter chapter in San Mateo county politics.
Links:
San Mateo County Sheriff Is Ousted in Historic Final Vote by Supervisors | KQED
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In this October edition of The Bay’s monthly news roundup, we discuss the impact of the federal government shutdown on hunger in the Bay Area, and how local governments are responding. We also discuss Uber’s plans to enter the driverless vehicle market, and how the California condor is making a comeback after near-extinction. Plus, we pay tribute to KQED transportation editor Dan Brekke, who is retiring after nearly 50 years in Bay Area journalism.
Links:
Contra Costa County plans to give CalFresh recipients food money if SNAP is paused
San Francisco Will Cover SNAP Benefits for November Amid Federal Shutdown
With SNAP Benefits Delayed, Restaurants Step Up to Feed Bay Area Families
Uber will challenge Waymo’s robotaxi dominance in San Francisco
For a century, they were gone. But California condors are making a comeback in these parts of the Bay Area
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There have been mixed reports of the situation at Yosemite National Park since the federal government shutdown began on Oct. 1. Some say the park is rife with unruly visitors, trash, and illegal behavior, while others say it’s perfectly normal. So KQED reporter Sarah Wright went to go see for herself.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom is accusing the Trump Administration of “rigging” California’s special election after the Department of Justice announced its plans to send election monitors to California polling places this November. Gov. Newsom sits down with KQED’s Political Breakdown podcast in this wide-ranging interview at our studios in San Francisco.
Links:
Watch this interview on YouTube
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Update Friday Oct. 24, 2025 12:43 p.m.: After bracing for a surge of federal immigration actions, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said Friday afternoon that border patrol operations have been cancelled for the entire Bay Area, including Oakland.
The Bay Area started bracing for federal troops Wednesday night after the San Francisco Chronicle first reported that nearly 100 federal agents, including from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, would be coming to the U.S. Coast Guard Island in Alameda for a major immigration enforcement operation in the region. Then on Thursday morning, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced that President Donald Trump had called off the “surge” in San Francisco.
Links:
Federal Agents Injure Activists at Coast Guard Base During Immigration Crackdown
Lurie: Trump Is ‘Calling Off’ Plans to Send Federal Troops to San Francisco
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It's wine harvest season in California. And between tariffs, decreased demand, and a cooler summer, the industry has had a tough year. KQED's Elize Manoukian visits one vineyard in Healdsburg to see how the season is going.
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This November, Californians are being asked to decide whether the state can redraw our congressional districts with Proposition 50.
California Democrats say Prop. 50 is their answer to pressure from President Trump on red states like Texas, which redrew its congressional maps to favor Republicans in next year’s midterm elections. Opponents say it tramples on California’s independent redistricting process, which voters approved more than a decade ago.
This episode originally aired on Aug. 10, 2025.
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San Franciscans can expect to see up to 100 new, large temporary art installations around the city over the next three years, thanks to a billionaire-backed foundation’s project known as the Big Art Loop. These pieces are also being set up much faster — and with less public oversight — than permanent public art pieces in San Francisco.
Links:
Who Has a Say in the Flood of Public Art Coming to San Francisco?
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The city of San Jose is coming up with a plan to make it unlawful for federal immigration officers to conceal their identities while working in the city. The ban, along with California’s new “No Secret Police Act,” tees up a potential legal showdown with the Trump administration over its immigration enforcement operations.
Links:
San José City Council Supports ICE Mask Ban After Plainclothes Arrest
South Bay Day Laborer Center Staff ‘Devastated’ Over Immigration Arrest
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Santa Clara County officials are worried about how big cuts to Medicaid under President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will hurt the area’s four county-run hospitals, which rely heavily on Medicaid reimbursements.
Now, voters are being asked to weigh in on Measure A, which would increase the county sales tax by 0.625% over 5 years to fill in roughly one-third of the county’s projected annual losses from federal cuts.
Links:
Measure A voter guide
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For 38 days, UC Berkeley computer science lecturer Peyrin Kao taught classes while on a hunger strike for Palestine. He’s also one of more than 150 people whose names were sent by UC Berkeley to the Trump Administration for its investigation into alleged antisemitism — an investigation that critics say is meant to silence opposition to Israel’s invasion and siege of Gaza.
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After a yearslong holdup, Alameda County has started distributing funds from Measure C, a 2020 ballot measure that uses a half-cent sales tax to increase access to child care and preschool for the county’s youngest residents. Now, officials from other Bay Area counties are considering doing the same.
Links:
Alameda County Is Giving Cash to Child Care Providers. Other Bay Area Counties Are Envious
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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