KQED's Forum

KQED’s politics and government editor Scott Shafer sat down with House speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday in an interview spanning a range of issues. The Speaker called out Facebook for “lying to the public” after the company refused to remove a doctored video, shared by President Trump, in which she appeared to stammer, and she laid out her thoughts on impeachment. In this segment, Scott Shafer joins us to analyze the speaker’s remarks and the direction of the democratic party. We’ll also hear from Wall Street Journal reporter Rebecca Ballhaus about other political news, including the White House’s order that the US navy hide a destroyer named after Senator John McCain so that the ship would not appear in photographs with the President.

Seventy-four percent of adults and 68 percent of teens go to bed with their phones, according to a new study by Common Sense Media. Many of us are so addicted to our screens that when we wake up in the middle of the night, we check our phones. It’s not just our sleep quality that’s being hurt, the study found that both parents and teens feel as if phones have hurt their relationships. Forum will be joined by Common Sense Media CEO, Jim Steyer, to talk about the latest research and how it fits in with the organization’s overall effort to better understand mobile device use by kids and their parents.

The Oakland City Council is considering a resolution to decriminalize natural psychedelics, including mushrooms. The resolution's sponsors point to studies suggesting that psilocybin, the active agent in so-called magic mushrooms, can ease addiction, depression, anxiety and pain. If approved, Oakland would become the second U.S. city to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms; Denver voters narrowly passed a similar initiative earlier this month. The Oakland resolution is expected to come to a full council vote in June. What do you think? Should natural psychedelics be decriminalized? Why or why not?

Negotiations are expected to resume Wednesday afternoon in the New Haven teachers strike. Nearly 600 teachers, counselors, and nurses walked off the job on May 20th demanding higher pay, smaller classes and more support services for students. The district serves about 11,000 students from Hayward and Union City, most of whom have stayed out of school since the strike began. Representatives of the teachers' union and the school district met over the long weekend but ultimately could not reach an agreement. Forum takes a look at what's at stake for all involved.

Special counsel Robert Mueller announced this morning that he’s resigning from the Justice Department. Mueller’s public comments were his first since he took over the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election two years ago. In his comments, Mueller emphasized that he that he was bound by Justice Department policy that prohibits an indictment of the sitting president, but he made clear that he was not able to say with confidence that the president did not commit a crime.

The Golden State Warriors kick off their fifth straight NBA Finals on Thursday. We'll talk about that remarkable achievement and preview the series -- the team's last in Oakland -- with author and longtime Bay Area sportswriter Marcus Thompson. We'll also talk to Thompson about his new biography of Warriors star Kevin Durant.

Forum reviews, analyzes and answers questions about the latest from Washington, D.C. We also discuss the latest Bay Area news, including calls for the removal of San Francisco Police Chief William Scott, following the department's raid of journalist Brian Carmody's home.

Psychology professor Ellen Winner studies how humans interact with art, including what we consider art, how art affects us and why we like what we do. Her new book, "How Art Works" also challenges some commonly held beliefs such as literature's ability to develop empathy. Winner joins us to discuss her book and her scientific approach to studying art.

Ask a pet owner if animals have emotions, writes primatologist Frans De Waal and they'll say, "of course!" But ask a University professor, and they'll squirm. While the leading theories in science only recognize basic emotions in animals such as anger, happiness and fear, De Waal argues that animals share all emotions with humans, including complex ones like hope, disappointment, guilt and empathy. De Waal joins Forum to discuss his decades of research on the behavior and social intelligence of primates and his new book, "Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What they Tell Us about Ourselves."

There’s another score students can get on the SAT now: an "adversity score" that takes into account environmental factors like poverty, neighborhood, and school funding. The College Board announced it will roll out this score to 150 colleges by the end of this year, and make it available to all colleges in 2020. The new score comes in response to criticism that SAT test scores tend to positively correlate with wealth and are given undue weight in college admissions. Proponents say the new index will help diversify college admissions, while critics argue that a single number cannot encapsulate hardship, and that standardized testing itself only exacerbates inequality.