KQED's Forum

California bars insurance companies from cancelling residential property insurance policies for homes in places that burned in the 2020 wildfires. But after years of catastrophic fires, insurance companies are refusing to renew policies for a growing number of the 3 million Californians who have homes in high wildfire risk zones. Finding replacement coverage can cost many times more than an original policy. Now, the insurance industry is talking about raising rates based on a home’s exposure to climate change induced catastrophe.  We’ll hear about a growing crisis in the state’s insurance market, and what the industry, consumer advocates, and legislators are trying to do about it.  

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In three weeks, the Oakland City Council will vote whether to approve the A’s proposal to build a new baseball stadium at Howard Terminal. The A’s say their waterfront proposal, which includes housing, a performance space and hotels, will revitalize West Oakland, an area of the city that has historically suffered from gentrification and displacement by infrastructure like BART and freeways. Opponents say it will cost jobs at the port and argue that the stadium should be built at the Coliseum where ample transportation infrastructure exists. Ratcheting up the tension is the A’s ultimatum that if they can’t build on the waterfront, they will move away entirely, leaving Oakland without a major league sports team following the loss of the Raiders and the Warriors. We’ll hear about the plan and what it means for Oakland and Bay Area sports fans.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Poet, teacher and Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith joins us to talk about his new book, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America. Smith takes readers on a tour of eight sites to examine the history of slavery in America and how that history lives on through stories -- who tells them, how and where. Along his journey, he discovers buried facts, false narratives and often willful ignorance of a dark time in our nation’s history that still has implications. We’ll talk about how Americans’ understanding of slavery -- or lack of it -- plays out today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Public transit ridership is slowly rising after the pandemic forced transit agencies to cut services. But few other agencies across the nation decreased service as much as Muni and BART, and San Francisco ridership was at 39 percent of pre-pandemic levels in May, according to a recent San Francisco Chronicle analysis. San Francisco is also experiencing tension between the Board of Supervisors and Mayor London Breed over a proposal to eliminate Muni fares for this summer. We’ll check in with SFMTA, BART, AC Transit and VTA about their announced service increases, capacity requirements and plans to entice riders back. And we want to hear from you: What should these agencies prioritize as they re-expand services?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the Supreme Court's term nears a close, we analyze some of the significant opinions released so far, which span religious liberty and free speech questions, the rights of union organizers and the Affordable Care Act. We'll also look at what's at stake in two Arizona voting rights cases awaiting a decision, and how the Court's 6-3 conservative majority is influencing its jurisprudence.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than a quarter of Americans are estranged from a close family member, new research from Cornell University finds. The reasons for breaking off contact are familiar: divides over money, values and parental divorce, along with tension from parenting choices or in-law relationships. We’ll talk about the nuances of the phenomenon, including U.S. cultural individualism, the nuclear family’s decline, and the traditions of chosen family within LGBTQ+ communities. And, of course, we want to hear your stories about navigating deep rifts within your own family.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“It should puzzle us more than it does that one of the greatest foci of human ingenuity and concentrated effort over the past millennia has been the problem of how to get drunk,” writes Edward Slingerland in his new book “Drunk.” Alcohol might not only enable personal creativity and social ease — it may have aided the cohesion and innovation necessary to create civilizations themselves. Slingerland does not dismiss the gravity of addiction and its endangering behaviors, but in appealing to history, neuroscience and art, he makes the case that drinking, socially and in moderation, can advance social goods.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Californian’s famously love their cars, but around the Bay Area a lot of people are more passionate about other ways to roll, like bikes, roller skates or skateboards. KQED’s podcast, Rightnowish, is celebrating our love of wheels and the role they play in community and culture with a series called “Roll With Us”. We’ll talk with host Pendarvis Harshaw about the San Franciscan who’s been dancing on his roller skates for half a century, “chair skating” with the extreme wheelchair sports league, the South Bay’s lowrider car culture and more. And we want to hear from you. Are you part of a community on wheels?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the approval of two major cannabis growing and distribution projects, Antioch has put itself on the map as a significant player in the marijuana industry. “I don’t mind being known as the cannabis capital of Northern California,” declared Antioch mayor Lamar Thorpe, citing the jobs that it would bring to the eastern Contra Costa County town. Meanwhile, Sonoma County has set aside a proposal to ease restrictions around growing cannabis and entered into a study phase to analyze the environmental impacts of that ordinance. We’ll talk to a panel of experts about the changing geography of cannabis cultivation.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For 13 years, pop star Britney Spears has been subject to a conservatorship that controlled many of her life decisions, and on Wednesday, Spears testified damningly about the damage done to her by that arrangement. According to the star, her conservators have forcibly placed her on lithium, pushed her into unnecessary rehab, and prevented from having children by refusing to let her remove her IUD. “I deserve to have a life. I've worked my whole life. . . I deserve to have the same rights as anybody does,” declared Spears. We’ll talk about the hearing and what happens next. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices