Funeral rites are underway for Pope Francis, who died this week at age 88 after leading the Roman Catholic Church for 12 years. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world are expected to attend the papal funeral in Vatican City on Saturday, including cardinals from around the world. Many of these cardinals will then begin the process of electing the next pope. Before the white smoke is released, we’ll look at the conclave process and examine who might succeed Pope Francis — and whether he’ll continue Francis’s legacy of environmentalism, openness and compassion.

Guests:

Father Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam, chair of philosophy of science and director, the Institute of Social and Political Sciences at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome; former coordinator of Ecology and Creation at the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development

Jeffrey Guhin, associate professor of sociology, UCLA

Bry Jensen, Host of the long-running Pontifacts podcast

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Caregiving is the most universal of human acts. But also one of the most invisible. While caring for a child, parent or loved one can be meaningful, and life defining, it can also be exhausting and life breaking. Drawing on her groundbreaking research on baby’s brains, UC Berkeley psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik is leading a multidisciplinary project to better understand the social science of caregiving with hopes of translating those insights into practical policies. Gopnik and policymaker Anne-Marie Slaughter join us to talk about how rethinking our approach to caregiving and how we support care providers, could lead to a better, more functional society.

Guests:

Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy, UC Berkeley; author, "The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children"

Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America, a non-profit think tank; author of "Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family"

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Is the United States in the talked-about and feared constitutional crisis? President Trump and his administration are increasingly ignoring federal court rulings on issues like immigration and funding. Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer calls the president’s defiance “a new step into presidential lawlessness.” We talk with Serwer and Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern about what this means for the balance of power in Washington and for democracy.

Guests:

Adam Serwer, staff writer, The Atlantic

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, president, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; previously a justice on the California Supreme Court

Mark Joseph Stern, senior writer, Slate Magazine

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Ellis Island might have been a welcoming place for many immigrants to the United States, but Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay tells a more troubling history of immigrant detention. Starting next month, the Oakland Ballet will premiere “Angel Island Project,” a dance production highlighting the stories of immigrants, primarily from China, who were detained there in the early 20th century. As part of KQED’s annual Youth Takeover, high school students Nico and Maite bring together choreographers and a local historian to talk about the project and the lessons that histories of immigration can teach us today.

Guests:

Graham Lustig, artistic director, Angel Island Project and Oakland Ballet Company

Phil Chan, choreographer, Angel Island Project - co-founder, Final Bow for Yellowface

Ye Feng, dancer and choreographer, Angel Island Project

Ed Tepporn, executive director, Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Nico Fischer, Youth Advisory Board member; senior, Santa Clara High School

Maite del Real, Youth Advisory Board member; junior, Ruth Asawa SF School of the Arts

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Overturning Roe v. Wade was never the end goal of the anti-abortion movement, says UC Davis law professor and leading abortion historian Mary Ziegler. It was always to establish personhood for a fertilized egg, subject to equal protection under the Constitution. Should the “fetal personhood” movement succeed, then providing, assisting and even obtaining an abortion could be criminal acts. Ziegler joins us to break down the fetal personhood movement’s legal strategy — and what it could mean for abortion access, contraception and in vitro fertilization. Ziegler’s new book is “Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction.”

Guests:

Mary Ziegler, professor of law, UC Davis School of Law

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More than a thousand international college students – scores of them in California – have had their visas terminated without explanation under new Trump administration policies. We’ll talk about what the administration’s targeting of international students and threatened withdrawals of federal funding mean for California students and schools, and how Universities and colleges are responding.

Guests:

Molly Gibbs, Bay Area News Group education reporter, East Bay Times

Doug Belkins, higher education and national news reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Aarya Mukherjee, deputy news editor, The Daily Californian

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In today’s intensely polarized climate, political conversations can quickly devolve into heated arguments. But a process called deliberative democracy has found success convening people from across the political spectrum for informed, reasoned dialogue on contentious issues. As part of KQED’s Youth Takeover week, high school students Ryan Heshmati and Anaya Ertz bring together the head of Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab with people who have brought deliberative techniques to local government to discuss how we can put dialogue and reason at the center of decision-making.

Guests:

Ryan Heshmati, senior, Saratoga High School

Anaya Ertz, junior, Marin Academy

James Fishkin, professor of international communication, Stanford University; director, Deliberative Democracy Lab

Claudia Chwalisz, founder and CEO, DemocracyNext

Rahmin Sarabi, founder and director, American Public Trust

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We often take our muscles for granted, rarely stopping to consider just how complex and essential they are. From the powerful beat of our hearts to the tiny fibers that raise goosebumps, our muscles do far more than we realize. They don’t just follow instructions from the brain — they send signals back and even hold their own kind of memory. In her new book “On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters,” journalist and author Bonnie Tsui offers a new way of looking at muscles, in terms of both their physicality and cultural significance. She joins us to discuss how reconsidering muscles can allow us to find deeper meaning in our understanding of strength, beauty and what it means to be human.

Guests:

Bonnie Tsui, author and journalist, her latest book is "On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters"

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Many of President Trump’s first policies in office — including removing Temporary Protected Status for migrants, walking back climate protections and denying trans personhood — were laid out and published back in April 2023, in the Heritage Foundation’s playbook Project 2025. “Project 2025 envisions an America where abortion is strictly illegal, sex is closely policed, public schools don’t exist, and justice is harsh,” writes Atlantic staff writer David A. Graham in his new book, “The Project.” In it, he analyzes the nearly thousand-page blueprint to make sense of what we’ve seen from Trump – and what could be ahead. He joins us to share what it all could mean for our democracy.

Guests:

David Graham, staff writer, The Atlantic

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As part of our series looking back on how the pandemic changed us, 5 years on, we examine the way we work. From working remotely to handling childcare needs to coping with being an essential worker, Covid forced innovations and exposed fault lines in the nation’s employment structure. We’ll talk about what we learned and we hear from you: How did the pandemic change how you do your job and think about work?

Guests:

Nicholas A Bloom, professor of economics, Stanford University — senior fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

Joan Williams, former professor of law, UC Law School San Francisco, and the founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law; UC Hastings College of the Law - author of White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America and the forthcoming title, "Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class"

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