KQED's Forum

On Wednesday, officials in San Francisco confirmed California’s first case of the coronavirus omicron variant. The patient in the case had recently traveled to South Africa, whose scientists first identified the omicron variant and tracked thousands of cases among its population. The emergence of the variant has reinforced concerns about low rates of vaccination in Africa and other developing regions, which have struggled to obtain and administer vaccines for their citizens. We’ll talk about global vaccine inequities and how to expand vaccine access worldwide.

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Retailers hope for a record holiday spending season this year, but for many Americans, prices rising at the fastest rate in 30 years may hamper holiday glee at the checkout counter. Even Christmas trees are up to 30% more expensive than last year. We’ll break down how prices and supply chain issues are affecting consumers, and get some tips on how to save money while beating shortages. And we want to hear from you: How are you changing your shopping habits this holiday season?

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The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday morning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case, brought by Mississippi’s only licensed abortion clinic, challenges a 2018 state law that bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Mississippi officials are asking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that affirms the constitutional right to abortion. Meanwhile, abortion restrictions in states such as Mississippi and Texas are pushing people to travel out-of-state to seek abortion care. We examine the Mississippi case and its potential impact on California.

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On Monday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced -- in a tweet -- that he was leaving the company he co-founded in 2006. His successor, Parag Agrawal, started as a product engineer and climbed Twitter’s ranks to become Chief Technology Officer in 2017. We'll look at Dorsey’s legacy and discuss what the change could mean for the future of the San Francisco-based social media giant as it grapples with challenges like misinformation and finding new users. 

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Earlier this year, California proposed an overhaul of its K-12 math teaching guidelines to address racial and economic disparities in math achievement. The draft proposal recommends de-emphasizing calculus, detracking some students and incorporating data science and equity and inclusion into math instruction. Critics say that the framework, which is an optional set of guidelines and not a new curriculum, politicizes math. We talk to Stanford professor Jo Boaler, a member of the committee which drafted the guidelines, about the proposed framework.

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Thirty years ago, white Los Angeles police officers savagely beat Rodney Glen King, a young Black man who had led them on a high-speed chase through the city. After a jury failed to convict four police officers, despite a graphic videotape of the beating, the city erupted into violence. This season of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast dives into the events of early 1990s Los Angeles and the decades of police brutality and injustice that led to them. We’ll talk with host Joel Anderson about the characters, context and legacy of the biggest U.S. civil disturbance of the 20th century.

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We'll break down the latest news from Sacramento and other political headlines from around the state with guest host Marisa Lagos.

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The World Health Organization today warned that the global risk from the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, is “very high”. The variant, first discovered in South Africa, has now been detected in more than a dozen countries. We’ll talk about what we know so far about how contagious the variant is and how effective vaccines are likely to be against it.

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Albert Samaha is the son of immigrants from the Philippines, a country molded by centuries of Spanish and American colonization and imperialism. His new book “Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes” is part memoir, part family history. Samaha reflects on his Filipino American identity and his family’s immigration experience, comparing the America he grew up in to the America that shaped his ancestors’ homeland. We’ll talk with Samaha about assimilation, Filipino American underrepresentation and how the descendants of immigrants reckon with the sacrifices of their elders.

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The pandemic forced many of us to rethink cultural norms — one being the expectation that people, especially women and younger folks, should color or hide their roots. Amid salon closures and cancelled social events, many people chose to grow out their gray hair, and some are sticking with the look. We’ll talk about why for some the choice to go gray can feel fraught, and why for others it brings a sense of empowerment. And we want to hear from you: Did you decide to grow out your gray hair during the pandemic? Or are you on the fence about whether to forgo the dye? What does gray hair mean to you?

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