Fifth & Mission

Coronavirus, heat waves, wildfire smoke and apocalyptic orange skies have hit the city — and it's Mary Ellen Carroll's job to respond. She's the director of the Department of Emergency Management, and she tells Heather Knight how residents can cope and what we should tell our kids about all the doom and gloom. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfcronicle.com/pod

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What's causing our air to turn an apocalyptic orange? Is it safe to breathe? How long will this dystopian atmosphere stick around? Chronicle reporter Michael Cabanatuan has talked to scientists and is here to explain. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod

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Latinos make up 16% of the population of Marin County, but 71% of coronavirus infections. Though it's more extreme in Marin than elsewhere, that disparity exists all over the Bay Area and beyond. Reporter Tatiana Sanchez explains how it traces to factors including the prominence of Latinos in front-line jobs and cramped living situations. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod

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Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks just had a baby in late July and wanted to vote by proxy to avoid coronavirus risks. When the Assembly speaker said no, Wicks drove from Berkeley to Sacramento and cast crucial votes while carrying her daughter. She also got three of her own housing bills through the Legislature, and now they’re before Gov. Newsom. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod

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On this episode of the Total SF podcast, host Peter Hartlaub talks to Chris Colin, a Bernal Heights writer and parent who, on a whim, launched Six Feet of Separation, an online newspaper for the coronavirus era created entirely by kids. An endorsement by Dan Rather and some national coverage have inspired many more local kid-staffed publications. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com

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Chronicle reporters Matthias Gafni and Lizzie Johnson reconstruct the Hennessey lightning fire as it raced east from Napa County into Vacaville, burning homes, forcing people to flee for their lives, and stretching firefighters who didn’t have nearly enough resources.

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Malia Cohen, sworn in this week as the city's newest police commissioner, discusses changes she'd like to see in the San Francisco Police Department and what comes next in the national protests over police brutality. | Get full Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod

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Gov. Gavin Newsom, like governors before him, wants to overhaul how water moves through the delta and supplies the rest of the state, proposing a 30-mile tunnel out of the Sacramento River. But as Kurtis Alexander reports in his Chronicle series "Delta on the Edge," local farmers, boaters, fishers and others are united in a fight against it, with signs saying, “No tunnel. Save our delta.” Also: Sutter Island resident Dan Whaley talks about why he opposes the project. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod

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San Francisco's historic neighborhood is under a double attack — from the coronavirus pandemic's crippling of service industries and from racism about COVID-19. Writer Melissa Hung, who wrote about Chinatown for The Chronicle's Throughline, talks about its future and her own deep family ties there. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod

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Prison inmates can learn how to fight fires and thin forests at 43 fire camps around California. But once they're out, their criminal records prevent them from joining fire departments. Heather Knight talks to two formerly incarcerated people who believe this Catch-22 needs to change as climate change makes California's wildfires more fierce every year. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod

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