KQED's Forum

Traveling can be a slog across the board, especially around the holidays. But for plus-size travelers it can also be a dehumanizing experience — navigating stares and glares and accommodations not built for their bodies and comfort. According to the CDC, about 74 percent of adults in the U.S. are overweight, yet this isn’t reflected in travel amenities. From airplane seat sizes to hotel towels and furniture to weight restrictions for excursions, the experience of plus-size travelers is often ignored. Travelers like Bay Area native Annette Richmond, who founded the online community Fat Girls Traveling, are creating opportunities for more inclusive travel experiences. We’ll talk to Richmond and others about both the harsh and hopeful realities of traveling as a plus-size person.

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The California School for the Deaf, Riverside’s football team is having a Hollywood-worthy season. They are the top team in their league and are on their way to clinching the title, not just by winning, but by dominating their opponents. Not too long ago, they suffered through seven straight losing seasons, and worse than that were the sneers and low expectations of rivals who assumed a team of deaf athletes could not prevail. Their quarterback calls them not just a team, but a brotherhood. We’ll talk to the school’s superintendent and reporter Thomas Fuller about the Cub’s championship season. 

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Cosmic rewards await very early risers on Friday: the full moon will glow reddish-brown in the longest partial lunar eclipse in almost six centuries. We’ll hear how, when and where to view it. We’ll also talk about the Mars Perseverance Rover’s latest discoveries, the just-scheduled December launch of the James Webb Space Telescope and all of your astronomy-related questions.

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Longtime Santa Clara Sheriff Laurie Smith is facing calls to step down from the County Board of Supervisors and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo for her handling of the county jail and its treatment of mentally ill inmates. In 2015, three Santa Clara County correctional officers beat a mentally ill man to death in a jail cell. In 2018, another group of county officers failed to intervene when 24-year-old Andrew Hogan suffered a traumatic brain injury while experiencing a severe psychiatric crisis. We discuss concerns about Smith’s leadership and how the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department treats mentally ill people in and out of jail.

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Amid the isolation of shelter-in-place restrictions last year, three artists --Erika Chong Shuch, Rowena Richie and Ryan Tacata --responded by creating “Artists & Elders,” a project connecting artists with senior citizens to create and exchange art. Informed by Richie’s work with people with dementia, a disease which counts isolation as a risk factor, "Artists & Elders" sought to be a source of creative social engagement, fueled by imagination and pleasure. More than 80 artist-elder pairs around the world have joined the project, and participants share that even more impactful than the works of art have been the lasting bonds they’ve created. We hear from some of the project’s participants and reflect on the power of art and friendship.

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Western monarch butterflies all but disappeared from coastal California last fall but there are now promising signs of an uptick in numbers. The Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary, which didn’t see a single monarch last winter, recently counted over 13,000 butterflies. As citizen scientists begin this year’s Thanksgiving monarch butterfly count, we talk with experts about why we’re seeing an unexpected rebound in monarch butterflies, and what it might mean for their future.

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The Transgender community holds a particular place in San Francisco history; the city by the Bay is the first to have a cultural district dedicated to that history and community. Compton’s Transgender Cultural District was named after the cafeteria that was the site of a riot in 1966, a response to police harassment of transgender people, several years before the more well known Stonewall riots in New York. The six block district spans parts of the Tenderloin and SoMa. We talk about the district, and what the city can do to support its transgender community during and beyond Transgender Awareness Week. 

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Punching flight attendants, hurling racial slurs at the crew, throwing luggage at staff. These are just a few of the over 5,000 complaints of unruly passenger behavior that the FAA has received this year. Airlines have banned some passengers for life, flight attendants have demanded more protection, and the FAA has announced a zero tolerance policy for this behavior and levied over $1 million in fines this year. As the holiday travel season picks up, we look at why there’s been an uptick in bad behavior, what can be done about it and what you can expect when you travel.

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Last winter, flu infections in the United States plummeted by more than 99 percent to about 2,000 from about 38 million the year before. The dramatic drop in flu cases led to far fewer deaths as well -- in most years, flu ranks in the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. Experts say that last year’s steep decline stems from behaviors meant to suppress the spread of the coronavirus: social distancing, social isolation and masking, as well as vaccinations. Cases of the flu are beginning to increase and more are expected now that the economy has mostly reopened after the pandemic shutdowns. We discuss how the coronavirus changed the game for the spread of influenza and how Americans can keep flu numbers down in the future.

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The Bay Area’s harsh system of penalties for late payments on bridge tolls disproportionately hurts low income residents, people of color and non English speakers, according to a new report by the Bay Area public policy group, SPUR. The report found residents struggling to pay tens of thousands of dollars in late fees, as high as 12 times the original toll, leading to deepening debt and a block on vehicle registration. We’ll discuss equity issues in late fee penalties, calls for system reform and the new steps taken by the Bay Area Toll Authority to address the issue.

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