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Breaking Down California’s Gubernatorial Recall Election Aug 18, 2021

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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.

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Why Garlic Noodles Are So Bay Area Aug 18, 2021

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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.

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Adam Harris on Racial Inequity in Higher Education and How ‘The State Must Provide' Aug 18, 2021

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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.

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Lizzie Johnson's New Book Recounts the Tragic Story of Paradise and Wildfire Aug 17, 2021

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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.

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Hunger Grows in Bay Area Aug 17, 2021

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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.

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California Afghan Communities Absorb Taliban Takeover, Government Collapse Aug 16, 2021

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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.

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Bonta, Ramachandran Face Off in East Bay Assembly Race Aug 16, 2021

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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.

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'What Strange Paradise' Explores Forced Displacement Through a Child's Eyes Aug 13, 2021

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For a few days in late 2015, global outrage coursed at the photo of Alan Kurdi, the lifeless two-year old Syrian boy found washed ashore in Turkey after the boat carrying him and other migrants sank on its way to Greece. Omar El Akkad's new novel "What Strange Paradise" imagines an alternative narrative: a young migrant child survives a shipwreck and tries to forge his way to safety. El Akkad, who's also a journalist and former war correspondent, says he wrote the novel to counter what he calls "the privilege of instantaneous forgetting." We talk to him about the ongoing global refugee crisis and the human stories that inform his work.

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How to Explore Distant Galaxies Formed 13 Billion Years Ago Aug 13, 2021

Show notes

Later this year, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will be strapped to a French rocket and launched nearly one million miles into space to look at galaxies formed 300 million years after the Big Bang. The telescope employs new and novel technology, including a gold-covered mirror, the largest ever launched into space, and a sunshield the size of a tennis court and made of five paper-thin layers that will cool down the telescope's sensitive infrared equipment. The hope is that the telescope, which has taken 25 years to design and build at a cost of $10 billion, will shoot back images even more spectacular than the Hubble Telescope. The engineering risks are complex, but scientists hope for a grand reward.

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A Family's Grief, Two Decades After 9/11 Aug 12, 2021

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In one month, the U.S. will mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, when nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In a new piece for The Atlantic, staff writer Jennifer Senior details how the family of Bobby McIlvaine continues to mourn and search for meaning two decades after he was killed in the attacks. The portrait reveals the disparate ways his loved ones process their grief, including Bobby’s father, who turned to 9/11 truther conspiracies to make sense of the loss, and Bobby’s former girlfriend, who holds on to one of his journals. As we remember the tragedy of that fateful day in 2001, we’ll talk to Senior about what the McIlvaines’ story tells us about grieving, both as individuals and as a nation.

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