The Bay

Huedell Freeman was hauling 47 pounds of marijuana from a farm in Mendocino County to a medical dispensary in Los Angeles when two Rohnert Park police officers pulled him over. They took his weed, gave him a citation and let him go. Freeman was never charged with a crime, nor was his marijuana ever returned. Today, an investigation into the suspicious allegations of pot and cash seizures on Highway 101 by the Rohnert Park officers in the North Bay. Update: KQED has learned that Rohnert Park police did in fact request that prosecutors file charges against Huedell Freeman. This corrects an earlier version. Guest: Sukey Lewis, KQED criminal justice reporter This story was reported in collaboration with the North Coast Journal and independent reporter Kym Kemp. Get more details about the questionable police seizures by reading the full story here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Flavored tobacco gets booted out of San Francisco. On Tuesday, voters passed Proposition E with 69 percent of the vote, making the city the first in the nation to pass such a comprehensive ordinance banning all flavored tobacco products from every store shelves. This isn’t the first time San Francisco garnered a major win against the tobacco industry. In fact, a ballot measure back in 1983 says a lot about why the city was poised to pass this first of its kind ordinance. Guest: Lesley McClurg, KQED science reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#TBT on The Bay: Sixty percent of voters decided to remove Aaron Persky from his judgeship in Santa Clara County. He's the judge who handed a six-month sentence to former Stanford athlete Brock Turner after Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in 2015. On an earlier episode of The Bay, we asked an expert: What are the consequences of recalling a judge because of an unpopular decision? We revisit that episode today. Guest: Jessica Levinson, elections law professor at Loyola Law School Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hang out with The Bay team as we wait for results from the June 5 primary. It’s time to eat newsroom pizza and hit the refresh button over and over on all our browser tabs. For updated results, find full coverage at kqed.org/elections. Guests: Guy Marzorati, KQED politics reporter and newsroom elections czar; Dan Brekke, KQED transportation editor; Alex Emslie, KQED criminal justice reporter; Ryan Levi, host of KQED's Q'ed Up podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The three top candidates running for mayor in San Francisco will have the chance to be the city's "first" in some way. But does a candidate's identity sway people's votes? And how does a voter's identity play a role at the polls? We ask these questions to voters and more. Guest: Corey Cook, Dean of the School of Public Service at Boise State University, and former professor of political science at San Francisco State University and University of San Francisco Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many of the Bay Area's largest fire agencies are failing to inspect apartment buildings and schools. An analysis by the Bay Area News Group looked at fire inspection records over an eight-year span and found nearly one quarter of the apartment buildings reviewed weren't inspected in 2017. State law requires inspections every year. Guest: Thomas Peele, investigative reporter with the Bay Area News Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Billboards adorned with giant pot leaves line Bay Area freeways. This can make it hard for parents to ignore that awkward coming of age conversation about drugs. Our health editor, who's also a parent, says drug education is radically different from when she grew up. Guest: Carrie Feibel, KQED health editor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Antioch has waited decades for a BART station. The city has seen a population boom led by the Bay Area's housing crisis, which has pushed people farther and farther out. Last weekend, BART officially began train service to Antioch. We talk to residents about how it feel. Guest: Sandhya Dirks, reporter and co-host of KQED's American Suburb podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re voting in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley or San Leandro ... you get three votes! Kind of. Today, we explain how ranked-choice voting works, why some people like it, why some people hate it, and how politicians can win even if they come in second. June 5 is Primary Election Day. Guest: Scott Shafer, Senior Editor for Politics and Government Desk for KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two deaths by police. Zero charges. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón said Thursday that his hands are tied and he won't be prosecuting the officers who killed two men of color in high-profile cases. But he calls the shootings of Mario Woods in 2015 and Luis Gongora in 2016 “unnecessary” and “disturbing.” So why can’t he prosecute? Guest: Alex Emslie, KQED criminal justice reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

District 15 isn’t your normal district. At a forum in Berkeley, East Bay candidates for State Assembly are asked to do something they almost never do on the campaign trail: validate their opponent's point of view. Guest: Guy Marzorati, KQED Politics and Government reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We jump into a stranger's car on the Bay Bridge in the "casual carpool lane" to talk about raising bridge tolls. Our carpool driver and rider join in on a discussion about Regional Measure 3, which voters will decide in the June 5 primary election that could increase tolls on seven state bridges in the Bay Area. Guest: Dan Brekke, KQED transportation editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The costs of processing crime in San Francisco has left the city’s convicted criminals with millions of dollars in unpaid debt. Many people can’t afford to pay the extra administrative fees that accompany the criminal court fines. The Board of Supervisors will vote today on whether to waive unpaid debt that's owed to the city and cancel future administrative fees to help low income people with reentry after crime. Guest: Alex Emslie, criminal justice reporter for KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Calle 24. Japantown. The Leather District. These are all neighborhoods in San Francisco that the city has formally recognized as cultural districts. Not so much for tourism as an attempt to save them from gentrification. But will it work? Guest: Chloe Veltman, arts and culture reporter for KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oakland has lost a battle with coal. A judge ruled Tuesday to uphold a contract that lets a developer ship coal through an Oakland port. Developer Phil Tagami had sued the city after the council had voted to ban the shipment of coal. Guest: Dan Brekke, KQED transportation editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco supervisors were not happy with answers they got on Monday from the company accused of falsifying soil data at Hunters Point. In recent weeks, we learned two pleaded guilty to faking reports, and there is suspicion about whether the parcel where people now live is safe. Today, an update on how San Francisco supervisors are pressing the Navy, the EPA and the clean-up contractor to retest the area. Guest: Erika Aguilar, KQED producer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oakland’s Lake Merritt is supposed to be a public space for everyone. But it doesn't feel that way when white residents complain about the way black residents use the park. So how did people respond when a white woman recently called the cops on two black men grilling? They threw a party at the lake. Guest: Sandhya Dirks, KQED race and equity reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For a housing starved San Francisco, Hunters Point might look like a developers dreamland. The area has large plots of land, a waterfront and beautiful vistas. But the land has been making headlines lately with news of pollution, botched tests and radioactive waste. The latest is that the newly developed residential area called "Parcel A" may be more dangerous than previously thought. And residents are mad and suing. Guest: Chris Roberts, investigative reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are few women in tech. There are even fewer women of color in tech, which can be isolating. At a women's mixer in Mountain View for Google partners, two black women connect over their career experiences. They've seen how corporate culture gets in the way of workforce diversity strategies. Guest: Tonya Mosley, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief for KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Judge Aaron Persky is facing a recall election in June after sentencing a former Stanford student-athlete Brock Turner to six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious and intoxicated woman back in 2015. The Santa Clara County Superior Court judge has remained mostly quiet. But on Tuesday the Judge Persky called a news conference at a private peninsula residence. Today, what are the consequences of recalling a judge? Guest: Jessica Levinson, elections law professor at Loyola Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thousands of University of California union employees are on strike this week amid failed contract negotiations. Among them are gardeners, janitors, nurses aides and food service workers who say the Bay Area's expensive costs demand higher wages. Today, how a UC Berkeley gardener making $23 an hour gets along. Guest: Ivan Casanova, gardener for the University of California at Berkeley and Vanessa Rancano, KQED education reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco named the Julius Kahn Playground located in the Presidio after the congressman who represented the city in the early 1900s. But his racist past as the politician who disparaged immigrants and advocated for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 has San Francisco supervisors interested in renaming the park. We revisit the country's anti-Chinese past and hear how those racist laws oppressed Chinese Americans in San Francisco. Guests: Allan Low, real estate attorney and vice-president of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission & Norman Fong, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chinatown is one of the few San Francisco neighborhoods where lower income residents can still afford to make rent. The tenants living in one Single Room Occupancy - where rooms are 80 square feet - are the latest to sue their landlords over what they say are attempts to push them out, including fines for hanging laundry out of windows to dry. Guest: Jessamyn Edra, staff attorney with Advancing Justice Asian Law Caucus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Working without a boss has its perks. But many gig workers, like those who drive for Uber and Lyft, say they're treated more like employees than contract workers. The California supreme court ruled this week that misclassifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees is a "very serious problem." And the ruling could have big implications for the Bay Area where many gig workers live and work and could potentially be categorized as real employees. Guest: Sam Harnett, KQED Silicon Valley reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are license plate readers all over the Bay Area that law enforcement can use to track vehicles coming in and out of a particular area. Many of these devices have hung above street lights for a few years, but now some East Bay cities are beginning to limit what surveillance data is being collected from them and regulate how that data can be used. Guest: Cyrus Farivar: Ars Technica, senior technology policy reporter and author of Habeas Data: Privacy vs. the Rise of Surveillance Tech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The debate over rent control is at a new crossroads. Tenant advocates say they've collected enough signatures to ask voters in November to repeal Costa Hawkins, a state law that curbs rent control polices in some cities. We ask ... what exactly is Costa Hawkins, again? Guest: Jessica Placzek, reporter for Bay Curious at KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The so-called Golden State Killer raped more than 50 women and murdered a dozen people. Law enforcement officials said Wednesday that they'd arrested Joseph James DeAngelo, the man suspected of terrorizing parts of the Bay Area, Southern California and Sacramento for more than a decade. Guest: Alex Emslie, KQED criminal justice reporte Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's it like to be a teenager living through the Bay Area's affordability crisis? Today, as part of KQED's Youth Takeover week -- when we hand the mic to the generation that will save us all -- the team asks San Francisco high schoolers about going out with friends when a cup of coffee costs $6. Guests: Elke Janssen and Gabriel Alves de Lima Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some Bay Area cities want plastic straws out. Oakland and Berkeley are both considering ordinances on Tuesday that would force people to request plastic straws at restaurants. How Bay Area is that? Guest: Jeremy Siegel, KQED reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We published an episode on Friday featuring comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell who told us about a racist incident he suffered in 2015 when he was told to leave a Berkeley cafe for being black. Early on Friday morning that restaurant -- Elmwood Cafe -- unexpectedly closed its doors. Here's an update. Guest: Caroline Champlin, reporter for KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comedian W. Kamau Bell knows what it feels like to be on the receiving end of some racism. His experience at Berkeley's Elmwood Cafe in 2015 is a prelude to what we saw last week, with the arrest of two black men at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. The coffee company will close all U.S. stores next month for a one day training. We ask Kamau: Can you solve racism in one day? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Hayward Fault -- geologists warn this Bay Area fault line that runs through several East Bay cities could unbuckle an earthquake more dangerous, more destructive than the widely-feared San Andreas Fault. The U.S. Geological Survey released a report this week that estimates the damage a 7.0 magnitude earthquake could do along the Hayward Fault. Guest: Danielle Venton, Science Editor for KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some parents in Fremont don't want comprehensive sex ed to be taught to their fourth and fifth graders in schools. They've flooded school board meetings to say the curriculum does not respect their parental and cultural choices around sex. Guest: Sandhya Dirks, KQED race and equity reporter Subscribe to The Bay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Long hours, lots of injuries: That's the story some Tesla workers tell about a factory in Fremont. Elon Musk's electric car company says it's fixed its problem and improved worker safety. But a new story by Reveal from The Center For Investigative Reporting questions the accuracy of Tesla's latest injury numbers. What happens when new tech intersects with old manufacturing? Guest: Alyssa Jeong Perry, KQED reporter Subscribe to The Bay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Buying a house while black or brown is tough, especially in Vallejo. Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting found that white people are more likely than black people to be approved for a conventional home loan when all else is equal -- 50 years after the Fair Housing Act was passed. Guest: Emmanuel Martinez, data reporter at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A San Francisco doctor grabbed headlines right after the YouTube shooting last week. Trauma surgeon Andre Campbell took the press to task for showing up that day but not for other shootings in the community. Guest: Laura Klivans, KQED heath reporter Subscribe to The Bay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First came dockless bikes. Now -- scooters. These zippy, motorized, human transporters have descended upon San Francisco sidewalks. Local politicians (and some residents) seem annoyed enough to want to regulate them. Guest: Dan Brekke, KQED transportation editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I know your name. Your face. The way you walk. And what you like. But should I? While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies in Washington D.C. this week, we turn to some Stanford professors and students who are creating an ethics course for computer science. Guest: Vanessa Rancano, KQED education reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How has the Bay Area shaped and defined hip hop? A new exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California looks at the legacy of the music and culture. We take a field trip to the museum, then cross the Bay Bridge to meet an emerging rapper from Bayview-Hunters Point. Guest: Pendarvis Harshaw, KQED columnist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oakland has banned coal from being shipped through its East Bay port. But well-known (and well-connected) developer Phil Tagami says he has the right to export what he wants. A federal judge could decide who wins soon. Guest: Darwin BondGraham, staff writer, East Bay Express Subscribe to The Bay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Tuesday afternoon there were reports of an active shooter on the campus of YouTube in San Bruno. In the moments after a potential mass shooting it can be hard to know what has happened, even as first responders, witnesses, and journalists scramble to piece together the truth. Today, we follow KQED reporters in the hours following the gunfire. Guests: KQED Silicon Valley Editor Tonya Mosley and KQED Silicon Valley Reporter Sam Harnett. Subscribe to The Bay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's now easier for ICE to arrest immigrants in Contra Costa County. The sheriff's office is making public the names and release dates of inmates inside their jails. Some suspect this new policy has to do with the 27 women who've claimed abuses in the ICE detention center that is also run by the county. Guest: Aaron Davis, Contra Costa County reporter for the East Bay Times. Subscribe to The Bay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stephon Clark. Family, friends and the Sacramento community buried the 22 year-old who was shot at at least 20 times by police. We talk to one Bay Area activist before she headed to Sacramento on the day of his funeral. Guest: Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti-Police Terror Project and executive director of the Justice Teams Network Subscribe to The Bay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Raiders and Warriors are leaving Oakland. But the A’s say they’re committed to staying. The team is choosing between two locations for a new stadium. We talk to a reporter who happens to be a superfan. Guest: Nina Thorsen, KQED producer Subscribe to The Bay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Buying a home in the Bay sucks. That's why Sally Kuchar is tweeting about it. And her message has gone viral. Here's her story. Guest: Sally Kuchar, editor for Curbed, @sallykuchar Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A year ago today, a West Oakland fire killed four people, displaced dozens and destroyed a halfway house that was the very last housing option for people living there. We follow one man’s story who went from tenant to tent. Guest: Matthias Gafni, investigative reporter with the Bay Area News Group Link to the stories: https://bayareane.ws/2Gdke3m https://bayareane.ws/2GezLjm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A San Francisco judge wearing a space tie (yes, outer space) is setting the tone for future climate change court battles. But who is he? We learn about Judge William Alsup. Guests: Sarah Jeong, senior writer for The Verge and Molly Peterson, KQED science reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cars without humans are coming. On April 2, California will allow tech companies to test driverless cars that don't have people behind the steering wheel. Should the Bay Area be concerned? Guest: Aarian Marshall, Wired transportation staff writer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco's got a problem with car break-ins. Police have been trying to solve it and the first month of the year is looking good. But the city has a lot more work to do. Today, we hand it off to Bay Curious, KQED's podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area. Guest: KQED reporter Sarah Craig Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An Oakland coffee shop that refuses to serve uniformed police officers attracts pro-Trump protesters. Coffee shops are often seen as symbols of gentrification. This one is trying not to be that. Guest: Janelle Bitker, East Bay Express staff writer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices