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'The Chaplain and the Doctor' Centers Empathy and Spirituality in Health Care Apr 18, 2025

Show notes

A new documentary, “The Chaplain and the Doctor,” offers an intimate glimpse into the palliative care unit of an Oakland hospital, where two women — an 80-year-old African American chaplain and a white Jewish physician — navigate the complexities of end-of-life care from profoundly different perspectives. As their paths intertwine, what begins as a professional encounter deepens into a friendship grounded in empathy, spiritual reflection and shared commitment to healing. The film will soon make its world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival. We’re joined by the film’s subjects, chaplain Betty Clark and Dr. Jessica Zitter, who is also its director.

Guests:

Dr. Jessica Zitter, physician, Highland Hospital in Oakland - director, "The Chaplain and the Doctor"

Betty Clark, chaplain, Highland Hospital in Oakland

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The Home Insurance Crisis: A Conversation with Florida Apr 18, 2025

Show notes

California and Florida have been the epicenter of the home insurance crisis, with insurers jacking up prices, refusing coverage or fleeing the states entirely because of the massive costs from wildfire and hurricane damage. We team up with Florida public radio station WLRN to examine how our two states, with different politics and similar problems, are approaching the crisis.

Guests:

Danielle Venton, science reporter, KQED News

Tom Hudson, Vice President of News, WLRN, anchor of the Florida Roundup

David Brancaccio, host and senior editor, Marketplace Morning Report, he lost his home to fire in Altadena

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Artificial Intelligence’s Promises and Perils with Gary Rivlin Apr 17, 2025

Show notes

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Rivlin spent more than a year in the Bay Area shadowing the founders and venture capitalists vying to make big money off of generative AI. And in his new book “AI Valley,” Rivlin takes readers inside both the AI startups and the tech giants like Microsoft, Meta and Google trying to keep up. He chronicles the figures and breakthroughs of generative AI’s recent history – in order to better predict and understand its future. Rivlin’s new book is “AI Valley: Microsoft, Google, and the Trillion-Dollar Race to Cash In on Artificial Intelligence.”

Guests:

Gary Rivlin, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author, “AI Valley: Microsoft, Google, and the Trillion-Dollar Race to Cash In on Artificial Intelligence"

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Oakland Voters Await Results in Close Mayoral Election Apr 17, 2025

Show notes

Votes are still being tallied for Oakland’s Special Election that will determine who will finish out the term left vacant after former mayor Sheng Thao was recalled last fall. As of Wednesday, former Oakland City Councilmember Loren Taylor held a narrow lead over former U.S. representative Barbara Lee. Taylor campaigned as someone who knows the local issues and politics and can move the city forward. Lee represented Oakland in Congress for nearly 27 years and promised to bring more funding to address the city’s pressing needs. Final results could take several weeks using Oakland’s ranked-choice voting system. We’ll look at the latest results and talk about this unusual race and the future of Oakland.

Guests:

Darwin BondGraham, news editor, Oaklandside

Alex Hall, enterprise and accountability reporter, KQED

Shomik Mukherjee, Oakland reporter, Bay Area News Group

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Democrats Call for Investigations into Trades Surrounding Tariff Pause Apr 16, 2025

Show notes

President Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs caused chaos in financial markets and left investors scrambling. But who’s profiting from the turmoil? Democrats are calling for investigations into whether the President, his family or members of Congress used insider information to benefit from the stock market’s swings. We delve into allegations that some lawmakers are making money off Trump’s trade war and discuss the calls for accountability.

Guests:

Representative Mike Levin, representing California's 49th district, including southern Orange County and north San Diego County

Maria Aspan, finance correspondent, NPR

Erin Mansfield, democracy reporter, USA Today

Robert Faturechi, reporter, ProPublica

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How President Trump Aims to Dismantle Environmental Protections Apr 16, 2025

Show notes

In a sweeping executive order, Donald Trump has taken aim at efforts by states, including California, to set their own environmental policies. At risk are key components of California’s fight against climate change including its cap and trade program to control carbon emissions and efforts to promote electrical vehicles. Trump’s order is just the latest in his moves to reverse climate change policies, including halting government research funding and gutting environmental agencies. As his head of the Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin has said, the administration is “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” We’ll talk about the impact of Trump’s approach to the environment and how California could respond.

Guests:

Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law; podcast host, Climate Break

Sonia Aggarwal, CEO, Energy Innovation - a non partisan think tank based in San Francisco that provides research and analysis on energy and climate policy; special assistant, to the President for Climate Policy, Innovation, and Deployment in the Biden administration.

Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk, New York Times

Abigail Dillen, president, Earthjustice - a public interest law group focused on the environment

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The Trump Administration’s Crackdown on Legal Migrants Apr 15, 2025

Show notes

Tens of thousands of immigrants received notices last week from the Department of Homeland Security that their temporary legal statuses would be terminated in seven days. But many immigration experts say the migrants have legal grounds to remain. This comes after a New York Times investigation found that the Social Security Administration listed more than 6,300 migrants as dead to effectively cancel their access to financial services. We’ll talk about the latest developments in the Trump administration’s approach to immigration — one that’s been more reliant on revoking legal statuses and encouraging self-deportation than on the mass deportations promised on the campaign trail.

Guests:

Hamed Aleaziz, covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy, The New York Times

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Vauhini Vara’s Examines Selfhood with Assistance from ChatGPT Apr 15, 2025

Show notes

When tech writer Vauhini Vara was struggling to process her sister’s death in 2021, she asked an early version of ChatGPT to write about it through an increasingly complex series of prompts. The essays in her collection, “Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age” build on her conversations with AI, enlisting its help to grapple with what it means to be human when our thoughts, our words — and with them, our very humanity — are filtered through machines. We talk to Vara about how technological capitalism is redefining what it means to be human.

Guests:

Vauhini Vara, tech journalist and novelist; her new collection of essays is “Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age”

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‘Lost at Sea’ Profiles Sausalito’s ‘Anchor-out’ Community Apr 14, 2025

Show notes

Off the coast of Sausalito lies one of the nation’s oldest unhoused communities. Known as “anchor-outs,” residents live aboard makeshift boats moored in the bay, carving out a precarious existence. For nearly a decade, author Joe Kloc immersed himself in their world, documenting their struggles and growing tensions with shoreline residents determined to push them out. We talk to Kloc about his new book “Lost At Sea: Poverty and Paradise Collide at the Edge of America.”

Guests:

Joe Kloc, senior editor, Harper's Magazine - author of “Lost At Sea: Poverty and Paradise Collide at the Edge of America”

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What Economic Uncertainty Means for Your Finances Apr 14, 2025

Show notes

The U.S. economy has been rattled by back-and-forth tariff policies, a seesawing stock market, and concerns about inflation continuing to rise. Americans are worried about their job security, retirement funds, and the rising costs of goods from groceries to SUVs. We talk with financial experts to help us make sense of the economic uncertainty and how it should affect our financial choices. Are you doing anything differently in response to tariffs, inflation or market fluctuations?

Guests:

Jessica Roy, personal finance and utility columnist, San Francisco Chronicle

Ramit Sethi, personal finance expert; author, "I Will Teach You To Be Rich"; host, "I Will Teach You To Be Rich" podcast and the Netflix series "How to Get Rich"

Susannah Snider, managing editor for money, U.S. News

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