KQED's Forum

The Texas anti-abortion law which the Supreme Court declined to block, took many by surprise. The law prohibits abortions after six weeks, even in the case of rape and incest, and includes a novel civil enforcement provision that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who provides or aids and abets an abortion procedure. In remarks defending the law, Texas Governor Greg Abbott claimed a rape victim could obtain an abortion in the six-week period. Critics, like the Planned Parenthood PAC, responded forcefully tweeting: If you don't understand many people don't even know they're pregnant until after 6 weeks, then you shouldn't be restricting their options. Well talk about the impact the Texas law has had in the state and throughout the nation and how it is resetting the debate on abortion rights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fifty years ago this week, people incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility in New York rebelled, taking hostages after their requests for reform were denied by prison administrators. Attica State Prison was overpopulated at the time and the majority Black and Latino prisoners lived in dehumanizing conditions, including physical and mental abuse and allowances of only one shower a week. In taking over the prison, one of the voices of the rebellion, Elliot “L.D.” Barkley declared: “We are men! We are not beasts and we do not intend to be driven or beaten as such!” When New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller ordered state police to retake the prison after four days of failed negotiations, 39 people were killed in what the subsequent McKay Commission called “the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War.” On this anniversary, we’ll reflect on the Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971, its legacy and ties to numerous prison rebellions at the time — including in California — and what it has meant for today’s reform efforts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California faces a shortfall of more than 40,000 full-time equivalent registered nurses, a gap that's expected to last until 2026, according to a new UCSF report. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced experienced nurses to quit the field owing to exhaustion and burnout, and hospitals are struggling to fill positions. We'll talk about the toll the staffing shortage is taking on nurses, patients and hospitals and how to mitigate it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rewarding someone for not abusing drugs might sound counterintuitive, but in fact, its a highly effective form of treatment. Called "contingency management," the treatment focuses on positive reinforcement, and the VA has been using it successfully for the last ten years. A bill on California Governor Gavin Newsom's desk would help fund this program statewide. We'll talk to experts about how and why contingency management works and how it could improve treatment outcomes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First Fridays, a popular monthly art walk and street fair in Oakland, will restart in October -- months after event organizers originally planned to resume after pandemic closures. They said they couldn’t afford a $24,000 per event fee the Oakland police charged for security. Other events have also been delayed or canceled because of prohibitively expensive security fees, which event organizers say seem arbitrary and often surface at the last minute. Oakland’s city council approved a resolution last year to change the public events permitting process, but hasn’t been implemented. We talk about the cost of putting on events in Oakland and what the city could do to address the problem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The pandemic might feel endless, but for scientists COVID-19 is still relatively new and research is evolving quickly. We'll talk with an infectious disease specialist about major studies that have come out recently. There are new findings on masks, the effectiveness of vaccines, and how much immunity we get from prior COVID infections. We'll talk about the newest research and treatments and we'll take your questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Skies darkened by smoke. Streets flooded by rain. Temperatures so hot, sea animals boiled in the ocean. Given this year of extreme weather, fire and heat, it is no wonder that “eco-anxiety” or “climate dread” have entered our vernacular. But they are more than catchphrases. Climate-induced anxiety is a real set of emotions that can require attention and treatment and for some, those emotions are a call to action. We’ll talk about climate anxiety and the climate solutions it’s helping to foster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior over extending the lease of parkland by dairy and beef cattle ranchers in Point Reyes National Seashore is due by September 13th. It would be the first update to the park's general management plan since 1980, and includes a proposal to kill some of the park's tule elk. We'll hear what's at stake in the upcoming decision, and get the history behind the battle over whether ranching should continue at Point Reyes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who has represented the northwestern portion of Alameda County for more than 20 years, was the sole vote against war in Afghanistan in 2001. This moment is central to the new documentary from director Abby Ginzberg, Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth To Power. The film depicts Rep. Lee's decades-long career, tracing her early political awareness as a student at Mills College and UC Berkeley through her work on civil rights, AIDS funding and anti-poverty work. We'll talk with the Congresswoman and the documentary's director about her career and her recent statement that, there has never, and will never, be a U.S. military solution in Afghanistan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscription-based website OnlyFans, popularly used by sex workers, announced last month it would ban sexually explicit content, blaming the decision on payment providers. Less than one week later, the company said it would suspend the ban, amid backlash from sex workers and advocates. Online sex work and platforms like OnlyFans boomed in popularity during the pandemic, and many online sex workers report increased autonomy and safety compared with in-person work. Yet the industry is volatile and dependent on payment providers, which have longstanding histories of financial discrimination against sex workers. We’ll talk about the online sex work industry and hear from those who work in it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Packing an emergency go bag is advice every Californian is familiar with. But what happens when you actually have to evacuate? Residents of cities and towns across California have been learning these hard lessons as the state grapples with numerous wildfires. This year alone, as many as 60,000 people have had to evacuate due to wildfires that to date have burned 1.9 million acres around the state. This hour of Forum, we talk to residents of South Lake Tahoe who have evacuated as the Caldor fire inches towards their homes. Well also talk to survivors of megafires to find out what happens once the fire is out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The United States Tennis Association launched a new mental health initiative for players in this year's U.S. Open, which is currently underway. The effort follows tennis star Naomi Osaka's withdrawal from the French Open earlier this year, where she revealed struggles with her mental health and sparked a flurry of media conversations about what's appropriate to expect and demand of athletes. Offering licensed mental health providers and quiet rooms among other services, the program also aims to combat stigma. We'll talk about the initiative, as well as what it means for sports governing bodies to meaningfully address athletes' mental health concerns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A former factory worker in China, 31-year-old Luo Huazhong, made global headlines in April when he chose to “lie flat” and opt for working odd jobs and an overall slower lifestyle than is culturally accepted. It’s a feeling that has resonated with many in the U.S., particularly millennials and Gen Z, who are leading what’s been termed “The Great Resignation.” It’s a phenomenon that’s taken hold during this period of high employee turnover, as workers feel more confident in the economy and in making career changes that better meet their needs. Writers Cassady Rosenblum and LZ Granderson each reflect on this growing shift in Americans’ relationship with work in recent essays, and they join us to discuss today’s culture of work in the U.S. and consider the possibility of one that’s less about “grinding” and more friendly to “lying flat.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Late Wednesday night in an unsigned majority opinion, the Supreme Court declined to block a Texas law that prohibits any abortions after six weeks, making it the most restrictive in the nation. The law, which prohibits abortions even in the case of rape and incest, is not enforced by the state; instead it deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who performs or “aids and abets” an abortion procedure. Chief Justice John Roberts, siding with the minority, described the law “unusual” and “unprecedented” in its attempt to delegate enforcement to private citizens. And writing in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the Court’s order “stunning” and criticized the majority for allowing the law to remain in effect while appeals are ongoing. We’ll talk about the Texas law, the latest developments and what this means for Roe v. Wade. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The South Lake Tahoe area remains under evacuation orders while the Caldor Fire continues to spread. At least 191,607 acres had burned as of Tuesday morning, according to Cal Fire. One of the major issues firefighting efforts have to contend with are spot fires. According to Scott Stephens, professor of fire science at UC Berkeley, almost 90% of the fire’s embers have a chance of sparking a new fire because of current drought conditions and ongoing winds. Stephens and KQED climate reporter Ezra David Romero join us for the latest news and analysis on the Caldor Fire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the last 10 years, nearly four dozen California workers have died from heat related-illnesses, according to an investigation by Columbia Journalism Investigations, NPR, KPCC and The California Newsroom. Public health experts say heat-related deaths are 100% preventable. But the investigation finds they still occur because of the chronic underfunding and understaffing of California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health — Cal/OSHA, which is charged with enforcing heat standards and protocols. Without proper inspections, employers can skirt regulations, placing farmworkers, construction workers, landscapers and others who work outdoors at a higher risk for heat-related deaths. With climate change only making California’s temperatures hotter, we’ll talk to the story’s reporters about the breadth of the issue and what’s being done to address it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With football season beginning, some fans are conflicted about whether or not to change the channel. Amid mounting evidence on player brain injuries, compensation questions for college athletes and the National Football League’s treatment of Colin Kaepernick, some once-diehard fans feel they can’t ethically continue to watch. Still, even though the 2021 Super Bowl reported decreased viewership, 96.4 million still tuned in. We want to hear from you: What’s the moral math of your football consumption? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

College dropout Elizabeth Holmes once claimed her start-up Theranos would transform blood tests and modern medicine. At its peak in 2015, the company was worth $9 billion and was set to roll out its products across the country. But that came crashing down when investigations revealing that the technology was unreliable resulted in criminal charges against Holmes for defrauding investors and clients. Delayed by the pandemic, Holmes’ trial is finally underway in San Jose. We discuss what you need to know to follow along with the proceedings, and hear how the controversy has shaken Silicon Valley and startup culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a 20-year U.S.-led war and occupation, the Taliban control Afghanistan once again, calling into doubt the continued exercise of freedoms gained by Afghan women, particularly those in urban areas. We'll talk about what Taliban rule may mean for Afghan women and girls. We'll also talk about President Biden's resettlement plans for Afghan refugees and the political backlash he's facing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The United States military has officially pulled out of Afghanistan and the withdrawal has brought comparisons to the fall of Saigon in 1975. But a superficial historical analogy can be as misleading as it is enlightening. We’ll look back at the end of American interventions with scholars of Vietnam, Afghanistan and the Middle East. We’ll ask what can happen after the military leaves and what we can learn about the possible future of Afghanistan by looking at examples from history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the undocumented immigrants who work in industrial slaughterhouses to the guards charged with keeping order in the most notorious U.S. prisons: they're the hidden workers journalist Eyal Press writes about in his latest book, "Dirty Work." Press explores the psychic and emotional toll borne by poor people and people of color who are disproportionately trapped in jobs that the public at large sees as morally tainted, but essential to maintaining our prevailing social order. We'll talk with Press about what he uncovered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Forum Book Club pick for August 2021 is Nawaaz Ahmed’s debut novel “Radiant Fugitives.” Set in San Francisco in and around 2010, it tells the story of Seema, a lesbian and political organizer with doubts about the efficacy of politics even as she works on the campaigns of President Obama, District Attorney Kamala Harris and California’s 2008 proposition on gay marriage. Over the course of the final five days of her pregnancy, she tries to reconnect with her estranged, terminally ill mother who has travelled from India for the birth, and her devout Muslim sister, in from Texas. Narrated by Seema’s newborn son, the novel weaves together three generations’ stories, drawing inspiration from the Quran and the poetry of Wordsworth and Keats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Japanese baseball player Shohei Ohtani is having the season of his career. Last week the Los Angeles Angels pitcher hit his 40th home run of the season, setting a franchise record for the fastest player to reach the figure. Ohtani’s performance both on the mound and at the plate is drawing comparisons to another top pitcher with a big swing: baseball legend Babe Ruth. Amidst all the fanfare, though, Ohtani’s rising stardom is revealing long-standing biases in baseball and sports media after two commentators made ignorant and offensive remarks regarding his race and nationality. We’ll talk about the excitement surrounding Ohtani and his impact on baseball. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a story for the Los Angeles Times, journalist Tyrone Beason shines a light on the experience and history of Black Americans living in Palm Springs. While few in numbers, Black residents are part of a history that reaches back to the first half of the 20th century when, Beason writes, "hundreds of Black people from the South, and from Los Angeles and the Bay Area, settled in desert communities like Palm Springs." Beason interviews a number of current residents, some whose families have been in Palm Springs for generations, about the homes they've made in predominantly Black neighborhoods and the discrimination they've faced. Beason joins us to discuss how the U.S.'s legacy of segregated housing is reflected in Palm Springs and why Black Americans in California's desert assert they are "here to stay." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When visitors now walk into the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, they’ll face a mural outlining the earth’s strata designed by the late feminist artist Luchita Hurtado, part of BAMPFA’s newest exhibit “New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century.” The exhibit examines the feminist practice of more than 67 contemporary artists through pieces spanning the past two decades of feminist art. With sections dedicated to examining gender expansivity, the “male gaze” and women’s labor, the exhibit is part of a larger BAMPFA effort to bring together more than 100 arts organizations dedicated to social justice known as the Feminist Art Coalition. We’ll speak with the exhibit’s curator to discuss what it means to center feminism in 21st century art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her debut memoir, "Don’t Let it Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Body," Savala Nolan’s 12 deeply personal essays probe unsettled territory in her own life. Nolan tackles motherhood, sex, and feelings of otherness from the perspective of a self-described big-bodied mixed-race woman. One essay recounts her persistent prenatal pain that was ignored by her white physicians despite multiple emergency room visits. The author and director of the Center for Social Justice at the University of California, Berkeley, joins us to share her observations about the way our culture treats Black women. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nearly half of California is mired in exceptional drought, including vast swaths of the Central Valley, which produces roughly 40% of the nation's fruits, vegetables and nuts. Water shortages in the region are having profound effects on growers, who are uprooting crops, letting fields lie fallow and turning their lands into solar farms and other uses. We'll hear from farmers about how the drought is affecting their operations and the steps they're taking to mitigate the worst impacts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Morgan, conductor of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra died last week at 63. Morgan was known as a virtuosic conductor and a passionate advocate for making classical music accessible to an Oakland community he was deeply invested in. He embraced a melding of musical genres, even bringing in comedian W. Kamau Bell and activist Dolores Huerta to curate playlists for his orchestra to perform. “Being a classical musician, being a conductor, being Black, being gay — all of these things put you on the outside,” Michael Morgan, said in 2013. “So you get accustomed to constructing your own world because there are not a lot of clear paths to follow and not a lot of people that are just like you.” We remember Michael Morgan with some of the musicians and performers he worked with. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Citizen app, which, like Nextdoor, has been blamed for inciting vigilantism, recently launched a private service of on-call safety experts that users can contact 24/7 for help. Called “Protect,” this service monitors a user’s location, connecting them with a Citizen employee who can decide to bump the situation up to a 911 call. We’ll hear about the new frontier of safety apps and why critics say these crime and safety-reporting apps promote harassment, racial bias and over-surveillance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“The ‘zero COVID’ dream of fully stamping out the virus is a fantasy,” writes the Atlantic’s Ed Yong in his most recent piece, “How the Pandemic Now Ends.” Yong, who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on COVID-19, updates his seminal March 2020 article “How the Pandemic Will End” in wake of the delta variant. Vaccines alone will not end the pandemic, he writes — the pandemic will now never fully end, it will mutate into an endemic. But how long it takes for that to happen depends on mitigation efforts — many of which have been eschewed by state and local governments in an attempt to return to “normalcy.” He joins us to discuss this stage of the pandemic’s estimated impacts on hospitals and vulnerable populations as well as how we’ll reach the light at the end of the tunnel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Centers for Disease Control published a study on Tuesday that found that while vaccine efficacy against the delta variant of covid-19 is moderately decreased, vaccines still lower infection risk for the SARS-CoV-2 virus by two-thirds. The study reported the efficacy of Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines against the virus dropped from about 90 percent to 66 percent once the delta variant became the dominant strain. This study comes one day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its full approval of Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine on Monday. The announcement is expected to improve vaccination rates and push into effect private and public employer vaccine mandates, which had been contingent on FDA’s action. We’ll discuss the study and the effects of the first covid-19 vaccine FDA authorization and take your questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After wildfires destroyed more than 30 wine properties in the last year alone, Napa County’s wine industry is asking for more firefighting resources and is even proposing that the county investigate forming its own fire department. Unlike other rural counties with few resources, Napa can afford additional firefighting helicopters and used fire trucks. We’ll hear how a community scarred by years of wildfire devastation wants to change how it fights wildfire and what that means for ensuring access to high-stakes emergency resources for all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 42,000 California residents have been told to evacuate their homes as nine major wildfires continue to burn. More than one and a half million acres have burned this year, that’s more than burned this time last year, in what was a record breaking fire season. We’ll get an update on the fires and evacuations, and we’ll check in on the effectiveness of the state’s response. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Larry Elder, the diehard Trump champion who opposes the minimum wage and said that climate change is a "crock," is the frontrunner to replace Governor Gavin Newsom, should Californians vote to recall him next month. Elder, an attorney who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, forged a decades-long career as a libertarian talk radio host, at one point nurturing the aspirations of Trump advisor Stephen Miller. We'll talk about Elder's political views and the controversies that surround him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rita Dove, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the nation’s first Black poet laureate, has returned with a new volume of poems titled “Playlist for the Apocalypse.” It’s Dove’s first book in 12 years -- in part due to a health battle with multiple sclerosis that she reveals and poignantly reflects on in a sequence called “Little Book of Woe.” Both personal and political, Dove’s poems also meditate on American life today, in all its strife, uncertainty, complexity and beauty. Dove joins us to talk about the book and her return to writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Toyota will produce about 140,000 fewer cars and trucks next month, a 40 percent cut to its September production, as a result of the lack of microchips necessary for its electric vehicles. It’s just one of many recent effects from the global semiconductor shortage, which is slowing the delivery of cars, computers, medical technologies and many other products. This crisis in the semiconductor supply chain has widespread impacts on the global economy, as well as on our economy here in the U.S. We’ll analyze why this is such a major problem, what it means for Bay Area companies and what the U.S. could do to once again become a leader in semiconductor production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The use of the kind of chokehold that killed George Floyd last year should, according to constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, be a clear-cut violation of the Fourth Amendment's ban on excessive police force. But as Chemerinsky explains in his new book "Presumed Guilty," chokeholds remain in use in most of the United States because of a decades-old Supreme Court decision that tightly restricts federal lawsuits challenging police misconduct. We'll talk about the judicial doctrines that enable illegal police behavior and how to reform them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russ Ellis is a man for all seasons. He was a track star at UCLA, the first black professor to teach at Claremont and a UC Berkeley vice chancellor for student affairs and architecture professor. When Ellis retired in 1994, he threw himself into new pursuits. Painting classes. Sculpture. A men’s group. His latest venture is his first album, “Songs from the Garden,” which includes 11 tracks he wrote and recorded and is available on local label Berkeley Cat Records. In his words, he’s “kissing the joy as it flies.” We’ll talk with Ellis about his music and how this age has given him the gift of being “too old to get nervous.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Documentary filmmaker Peter Nicks began filming at Oakland High School in fall 2019 to capture its seniors’ final year. He ended up capturing the specifically local experiences of a global turning point. From a student-led campaign to remove police officers from their school that begins months before George Floyd’s murder and resultant protests, to uncertain conversations around a new virus and an eventual Zoom graduation, the documentary “Homeroom” provides insight into the 2020 graduating class, depicting the students of Oakland High as the vanguard of national conversations on inequity and social justice. Nicks, whose previous Oakland-set documentaries depicted a public hospital and the city’s police force, joins us to discuss “Homeroom” and what it means to tell Oakland’s stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many parents and kids are feeling relief as the state's 6 million K-12 school children head back into the classroom for full time, in-person classes after more than a year of mostly distance learning. But fears over the spread of the highly contagious delta coronavirus variant have other parents signing their children up for independent study and demanding online zoom classes. Experts and state officials continue to back a full reopening, pointing to rising absenteeism, depression and anxiety among many children, as well as devastating loss of learning for students in predominantly low-income school districts. We'll talk about what California's schools are doing to keep students safe and address parents' concerns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of reggaeton music is layered and complex, and, according to reggaeton pioneer Ivy Queen, “the real story of reggaeton is about la resistencia. Resistance.” Queen is also the narrator of the new podcast “Loud” by Spotify and Futuro Studios, which gives reggaeton the documentary treatment and explores its nuances. “Loud” journeys through reggaeton’s origins in Jamaican dancehall to Panamanian reggae in español to “las calles” of Puerto Rico to New York and beyond. Once criminalized in Puerto Rico in the ‘90s and early aughts, reggaeton is now one of the most popular genres in the world -- reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny was Spotify’s most-streamed artist in 2020. We’ll take a critical look at reggaeton’s origins and evolution, from its dancehall roots to the massive pop presence it has today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"For thousands of years, time has been harnessed, politicized and weaponized," writes technology historian and horologist David Rooney in his new book, "About Time." Rooney examines a dozen timekeepers from sundials and hourglasses to the atomic clocks on satellites that create GPS. In doing so, he traces time's role in shaping civilization, pushing against perceptions of clocks objectivity and analyzing the utilization of time in accumulating and maintaining power. The son of a clockmaker and former curator of timekeeping at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, Rooney joins us to discuss the power of clocks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Outside the gates of the Kabul airport, thousands of Afghans seeking to flee the country camp along the access road, which is now blocked by the Taliban. Scenes like this have Afghan-Americans anxiously watching the news and waiting to hear from loved ones. Northern California is home to the largest Afghan diaspora in the country. As Afghanistan reels from the takeover by the Taliban, we talk to community members about how they are taking in the quickly shifting news and their work to prepare for the growing refugee crisis. How you can help: NPR: The Simple Steps You Can Take to Help Afghan Refugees Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 20 million California voters are receiving mail-in ballots now for the Sept. 14 gubernatorial recall election. Voters will be asked only two questions: whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom and, if he is recalled, who should be the new governor. Even for a state that leans blue, most polling shows voters are split over whether or not to remove Newsom. We'll talk with KQED's politics team to break down when to vote, the candidates on the ballot and why participation in this election is so important. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When asked to name some of the Bay Area’s signature foods, many would jump to name Mission burritos, It’s-It ice cream sandwiches or — especially for tourists visiting San Francisco piers — clam chowder. KQED food editor Luke Tsai is adding another food to that list: garlic noodles. “Here in the Bay Area, Asian Americans love garlic noodles. Black and Latino folks love garlic noodles. Indeed, once you start looking for garlic noodles, it seems, you find them everywhere,” Tsai writes in his recent article. So what’s behind the love for this dish born in San Francisco’s Vietnamese community? We’ll talk to Tsai about how garlic noodles became one of the Bay Area’s most iconic foods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A 2018 analysis by the Center for American Progress estimates that state colleges allocate more than $1,000 less per year for Black and Latinx students than white students. Americas colleges and universities have a dirty open secret: they have never given Black people an equal chance to succeed, writes Atlantic staff writer Adam Harris in his new book, The State Must Provide. Harris traces the laws and practices that established racial inequality and segregation in higher education back to slave codes through Plessy v. Ferguson and the overturning of affirmative action policies. He joins us to discuss this history of racial exclusion and segregation and his argument that financial support of historically Black colleges and universities could act as a form of reparations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have spent much of my journalism career bearing witness to the human cost of climate change, writes Lizzie Johnson in her new book, "Paradise: One Towns Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire." Nearly three years after the Camp Fire decimated the town of Paradise, taking 85 lives and razing 90 percent of its homes, Johnson weaves together its human impact, building from her San Francisco Chronicle reporting and an estimated 500 interviews. In Paradise, she writes of an ambulance holding a premature newborn and his IV-attached mother, a school bus driver maneuvering to save his passengers and other narratives of attempting survival against a blaze engulfing distances greater than a football field each second. Johnson joins us to share Paradises stories and what they foretell in the face of climate inaction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bay Area saw some of the biggest increases in people signing up for food stamps during the pandemic. Home to the highest income inequality in California, the Bay Area’s hunger problem has been an issue of growing concern since well before COVID-19. The Biden administration announced Monday that it will approve the largest permanent increase in food assistance in the history of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Yet the Bay Area’s cost of living may mean that increase is only a drop in the bucket. We talk with researchers and advocates about the unique landscape of food insecurity in the Bay Area and how they’re addressing the problem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With breathtaking speed, the Taliban have regained control of Afghanistan for the first time since American military forces drove them out 20 years ago. Collapse of the U.S.-backed government triggered panic in Kabul,with many questions about what comes next as the Taliban takes over. We'll talk with Afghan-Americans in California about how they're reacting to the news and we'll look back at the past decades of American military involvement to ask how intelligence so badly underestimated the strength of the Taliban and overestimated the stability of the Afghan government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alameda school board member Mia Bonta and attorney Janani Ramachandran are vying to represent East Bay Assembly District 18 and succeed Bonta's husband, Rob Bonta, who resigned to become the California attorney general. A special runoff election on Aug. 31 will determine who will become the next representative for the district, which covers West Oakland to San Leandro. We talk with the candidates to get their views on housing supply, criminal justice reform and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices