KQED's Forum

PG&E tells customers that it will again shut off power to Northern California communities this week to reduce the risk of power lines sparking wildfires. The shutoffs will affect 179,000 customers, mostly in the Sierra foothills and parts of the Bay Area. The move comes less than two weeks after the company shut off power to 2 million people across the region. We’ll get the latest news and hear from Sen. Scott Wiener about his proposed bill to limit and regulate blackouts in the state.

When Aarti Shahani was born, her parents, Indian refugees displaced by the partition of India, were living in Casablanca. They migrated to Queens, New York when she was a baby, not in pursuit of the great American dream, but to escape a dysfunctional extended family. It's a common, unspoken story, Shahani writes, "the real reason so many people from far away risk everything to come to the United States." And it’s just the beginning of Shahani's immigrant story as told in her memoir, "Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares,” which follows the family's pursuit of green cards, her father's imprisonment on Rikers Island and the long legal battle that followed. Shahani, now an NPR correspondent covering Silicon Valley, joins Forum to discuss her memoir and the changing landscape for immigrants in the U.S.

One of San Francisco’s most iconic and busiest thoroughfares is going car-free. Last week, the Municipal Transportation Agency board voted unanimously to ban private cars on Market Street east of 10th Street. The plan, 10 years in the making, has wide support in the city. But what will it mean for residents, commuters and downtown businesses? KQED’s Dan Brekke joins us to talk about the plan and what Market will look like when it is completed.

Facing bipartisan backlash for its refusal to fact-check political ads on its platform, Facebook announced on Monday it's taking new steps to address misinformation and fake accounts. The measures include features that help users identify potential propaganda from state-owned media organizations and track political spending. The move follows a controversial speech by CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week in which he argued that "people should decide what is credible, not tech companies." We'll talk about what, if anything, Facebook should be doing to control false and misleading political speech.

In his new book "Catch and Kill," journalist Ronan Farrow exposes the ways in which Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and his associates attempted to block reporting on the sexual assault claims that engulfed him. But the biggest obstacle of all, as Farrow tells it, was his then-employer NBC News, which killed his reporting on the scandal. Farrow eventually took his story to the New Yorker and later won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. We'll talk to Farrow about the cover-ups and obstruction he encountered as he reported this blockbuster story.

The American economy has largely recovered in the decade since the recession, but homeownership remains at a 50 year low. In his new book "Homewreckers," journalist Aaron Glantz details how financial executives profited from the devastating foreclosures of the 2008 housing crash, buying up hundreds of thousands of homes and becoming massive landlords, often with help from government subsidies. Glantz explains how those same executives -- including Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin -- are now shaping the rules of the industry to protect the wealth they accumulated during the recession. Glantz joins Forum to talk about "Homewreckers" and how the erosion of homeownership in the last decade has created widespread financial insecurity.

When Amaryllis Fox was 22, she became one of the youngest female officers in the CIA. She was assigned to "non-official cover" -- a life abroad with a fake identity and no diplomatic protections -- which she details in her new memoir, “Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA.” The book's revelations range from Fox's use of Starbucks gift cards as a spy tool to her role in terrorist negotiations. Fox joins us to share what she learned during her years undercover.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Thursday that he had reached an agreement with the European Union for Brexit. Even with a deal in hand, obstacles remain. Labour politicians have voiced disapproval of the deal and a group of Northern Irish lawmakers, whose votes are considered essential to passage, are not on board. Parliament will vote on Johnson's proposal this Saturday and analysts predict the vote will be close. We'll discuss Johnson's plan and the latest efforts to get a deal done before the Oct. 31 deadline.

President Trump's chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announced Thursday that the G-7 Summit would take place at Trump's own Florida resort, a move that's alarming ethics watchers. Mulvaney also confirmed that the White House withheld $400 million in aid from Ukraine to force an investigation of Democrats. Meanwhile, former EU ambassador and Trump ally, Gordon Sondland, testified before a House committee Thursday that Trump had directed that Ukraine policy be delegated to Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

Following the death of his mother and during a time of crisis in the Catholic Church, New York Times columnist Timothy Egan decided to examine his own connection to the Catholic faith. A self-described "skeptic by profession," Egan embarked on a thousand-mile, months-long journey from Canterbury to Rome along a medieval pilgrimage route. We'll talk to him about his quest and his reflections on Christianity, history and modernity.