This winter marks six years since Jennifer Porter and her family survived the deadly Camp Fire, a disaster that claimed 85 lives and burned over 150,000 acres. While Porter was lucky enough to drive through the flames that day, the fire set her on a new, harrowing path: building a new life for herself while healing from trauma. KQED’s Pauline Bartolone checked in with Porter along various stages of her recovery –a journey that continues every day. 

Then, we head south to the Still Life Cafe, a French kitchen with North African roots in the Eastern Sierra. The cafe’s many five-star reviews warn customers in a rush: come for a leisurely lunch, or hit the gas station across the street. As part of her series California Foodways, reporter Lisa Morehouse traveled to the town of Independence, to break bread with Malika Adjaouad Patron, the cafe’s owner and chef.

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While homelessness in the Golden State may feel like an intractable crisis, some unhoused people are able to get back on their feet–and find solutions that last. KQED’s health correspondent Lesley McClurg profiled two women in the Bay Area who spent years on the streets, and turned their lives around when it felt like there was no way out. Chantel Hernandez-Coleman overcame decades of addiction, and is now saving lives. Vera Salido has finally found safety and peace after a catastrophic event forever altered her world. 

Then, KQED’s MindShift brings us the story of the Monarch School, in San Diego County, which has transformed unhoused families’ lives, and offers hope to vulnerable students.

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After a momentous election this week, Californians are trying to make sense of what a second Trump presidency could mean for the Golden State. Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democratic Party leaders are fighting to protect the state’s progressive values on immigration, climate change and reproductive rights ahead of Trump’s inauguration. Host Sasha Khokha spoke with KQED’s political correspondent Marisa Lagos to discuss California’s future in a second Trump term.

Plus, in times of monumental political change, artists can sometimes help us make sense of the world, express big feelings and connect to one another. Oakland’s Kev Choice’s boundary-breaking work is doing just that. Choice is a classically trained pianist and accomplished hip-hop artist who has worked for decades to bridge the gap between those two distinct worlds. His diverse body of work includes songs about Oakland, racial injustice, activism and politics. KQED Arts and Culture editor Nastia Voynovskaya spent time with Choice to discuss his musical evolution, and his impact on the future of music in Oakland and beyond.

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Latinos make up the second largest voting group in the upcoming 2024 election, totaling 32 million eligible voters nationwide. But Latinos are not a monolith, and both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have been courting Latino voters on the campaign trail. Andrés Cediel is a filmmaker and a journalism professor at UC Berkeley. He’s also a producer of VOCES: Latino Vote 2024, a new PBS documentary project that explores the vast interests and priorities of Latino voters across the country. The California Report Magazine’s Sasha Khokha spoke with Cediel about how California’s Latino voters could tip the balance.

And a new documentary film takes a peek behind the curtain of a San Francisco opera about Black and Latina women during the California Gold Rush. In conversation with The California Report Magazine’s Sasha Khokha, the film’s director, John Else shares the true story of a mob-fueled lynching of a Mexican-American woman, and the lessons for our current political moment.

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Six-year-old Sumaya Kaur Sidibe beamed with pride when she watched Kamala Harris become Vice President in 2021. She identified with Harris in a big way: she is also mixed race – Indian and Black – and she’s from Oakland. We produced a story about the family preparing for Kamala Harris to take office back in 2021. But four years later, Sumaya has complicated feelings about the vice president’s politics and the way she talks about her own biracial identity. Host Sasha Khokha checks back in with the Sidibe-Singh family about how they are feeling about this upcoming presidential election, and the questions they have for Kamala Harris.

And Incarcerated people can’t vote in this upcoming election, but their lives may be directly impacted by the results. Our friends at KALW’s Uncuffed podcast bring you a conversation between currently and formerly incarcerated journalists at San Quentin: Ryan Pagan, Will Harris, Anthony Gomez and Thanh Tran. They discuss statewide ballot measures propositions 6 and 36. If passed, Proposition 6 would end involuntary servitude in prison, and Proposition 36 would increase penalties for certain theft and drug crimes. 

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California has grand plans to turn a stretch of abandoned railroad tracks into 300 miles of walking and biking trails, connecting the rolling hills of Marin County with the redwood forests near Eureka in Northern Humboldt. If completed, the Great Redwood Trail could become the longest rail-trail in the nation. But some Indigenous communities and other groups are not on board. Reporter Sam Anderson explores how this grand idea has resurfaced the painful and complicated history behind the original railroad tracks that were built more than a century ago.

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Moonlight Pulido is a mother and a caretaker for her own mom in Los Angeles. But she couldn’t have more children after a prison doctor gave her an involuntary hysterectomy while she was incarcerated in 2005. She’s one of hundreds of living survivors of state-sponsored sterilization.  

Here in California, more than 20,000 people were involuntarily sterilized in state prisons, homes and hospitals under eugenics laws. People classified as “unfit to reproduce” were disproportionately poor women, people of color, and people with disabilities. Even though California’s  eugenics laws were repealed in 1979, people who were incarcerated were still forcibly sterilized as recently as 2013.

In 2021, the state passed a historic reparations law to make amends for this shameful chapter in our history. For more than a year, reporter Cayla Mihalovich has been investigating how the law has been implemented. It was intended to compensate survivors for their suffering. But roughly 75% of applicants have been denied reparations.

Plus. our friends at KPBS in San Diego have a new series highlighting volunteers who devote their time in unique and unexpected ways. Today, we meet Jillian Shea at the Mesa Rim Climbing Center. She’s an athlete who lost a hand at birth. Now she’s introducing newcomers to the sport of adaptive climbing.

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You might think of Palm Springs as a wealthy town filled with luxury hotels and swimming pools. But it's also a place shaped by brutal racism. People who lived in Section 13, a once a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood, were pushed off their land. Their homes were bulldozed and burned down. Now, The California Report’s Madi Bolanos. talked to some of the former residents who are now fighting for reparations.

And we continue our Hidden Gems series with a visit to Mineral King. It's located in the southern part of Sequoia National Park. Mineral King's remote location means it gets fewer visitors than other parts of the park. But the campers and backpackers that make the trek are rewarded with a spectacular mountain range with rushing waterfalls. There are only a handful of buildings here, including some historic wooden cabins that belong to a few families who’ve been here long before this was a national park. One of those cabins belongs to Laile Di Silvestro’s family. Her connection to Mineral King goes back to the 1870s. Today, she’s an archeologist, and she’s looking for the stories she didn’t hear growing up. The California Report Magazine host Sasha Khokha hiked Mineral King with Di Silvestro to learn about some surprising trail blazers in the California gold rush. And the discrimination some people faced during those boom times.

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Today, it’s an unassuming beige building on a busy Berkeley street. But in the 1970s, the Rainbow Sign was a groundbreaking center for Black culture, politics, and art. It hosted dozens of high-profile Black thought leaders and performers, including James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Maya Angelou, and Shirley Chisholm. Although it only existed for a few years, seeing these performances and speakers left a profound impression on one young member of the Rainbow Sign community: Kamala Harris. As Harris takes center stage as a presidential candidate, and tries to tell the nation her story, we revisit our story from January 2022 about the Rainbow Sign and its influence on her as a child growing up in Berkeley.

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In California, music and winemaking seem to go together. Visit any of the state’s countless wineries and you can hear all kinds of music, from jazz and folk, to classical and Americana. But one artist on the Central Coast takes that connection especially seriously: he spent years making an album full of sounds from a vineyard. Reporter Benjamin Purper takes us to San Luis Obispo to learn more about a sonic journey through a Central Coast wine harvest.

And we'll meet one of California’s most celebrated cheese-makers, Soyoung Scanlan. But years ago, before she’d ever really eaten cheese, Soyoung had another love. Growing up in South Korea, she trained in classical piano. So every cheese she’s made over the last 25 years has a musical name and connection. For her series California Foodways, Lisa Morehouse visited the cheesemaker in the hills outside Petaluma.

We end today with a story that comes to us from KPBS in San Diego. They recently launched a new series, sharing stories of volunteers. We’ll be bringing you some of those profiles, starting with Ron Peterson, a guide at the Tijuana River Estuary. After losing his sight, Ron now leads a very unique kind of tour.

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