The Bay

For the last eight years, Uber and Lyft have successfully beaten state and local attempts to change its core labor model: treating drivers as independent contractors instead of employees with benefits.Then the pandemic hit. And now, California’s public officials — including state attorney general Xavier Becerra — might actually have the political will to force gig companies to change how they treat their employees.Guest: Sam Harnett, tech and work reporter for KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Soon after the pandemic started and Californians began to lose their jobs, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued what he called an 'eviction moratorium' to protect those who couldn’t make rent because of COVID-19.But there are a lot of vulnerable people who were never protected by that order. And since March 4, at least 2,000 California households have been kicked out of their homes.Guest: Matt Levin, housing and data reporter for CalMattersRecommended Reading: Exclusive: More than 1,600 Californians have been evicted during pandemic Newsom Announces New Statewide Eviction Moratorium — But Major Concessions May Threaten Tenants Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fire season doesn't have to be this bad. There are lots of things we can do to prevent more and more extreme wildfires.It'll take a big shift in the way we do things. California has spent decades reacting to and suppressing natural fires, which is one reason why the wildfires we're currently dealing with are so extreme. But it's still possible to rethink our relationship with fire and change our situation for the better.Guest: Danielle Venton, KQED science reporterRecommended Reading: To Manage Wildfire, California Looks to What Tribes Have Known All Along We Can Make California Wildfires Less Horrific. Will We? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California is low on firefighters at a really bad time. It’s partially because the state released thousands of incarcerated firefighters to prevent the spread of Covid-19.But it’s also because this system of relying on incarcerated people to help fight fires — which we’ve had since after World War II — isn’t sustainable.Guest: Kevin Stark, KQED science reporterRecommended reading: Rare Honors This Weekend for Inmate Firefighters Killed on the Job Let's Talk About Wildfires and Prisons Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that could ban WeChat, the popular Chinese messaging app, from operating in the United States. But this potential ban would also have ripple effects on local politics in San Francisco, where about one in five residents are Chinese. Many use the app to talk with family and do business, but also to reach voters and organize around issues like tenants’ rights. So without it, Chinese-speaking residents would lose a pillar of their organizing infrastructure. Guest: Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Reporter for KQEDFor the latest information on wildfires currently happening in the Bay Area, visit kqed.org. The newsroom has also put together resources on protecting against wildfire smoke, along with a resource on what to pack in an emergency bag. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in 2017, Quinn Jasmine Redwoods saw a long line of people at a food distribution center in Oakland. Nobody in line had a mask, even though the most deadly and destructive wildfires in Californian’s history were spreading pollutants into the air.So Redwoods picked up 300 masks at a local store, and created Mask Oakland, a trans/queer led grassroots organization to distribute masks to mostly unhoused and disabled people. And now, fires are burning again — this time, in the middle of a pandemic.Guest: Quinn Jasmine Redwoods, founder of Mask Oakland Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People across the state lost power with almost no warning over the weekend, and there’s a risk it could happen again soon. The California Independent Systems Operator instituted rolling power shutoffs to prevent an uncontrolled loss of power, and is asking people to limit how much electricity they're using. But why is this even happening in the first place?Guest: Dan Brekke, KQED editor and reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jesus Guillen overheard a woman ask why those being held on the Grand Princess cruise ship docked at the Oakland Port with COVID-19 couldn’t just be sent to an island somewhere. It reminded him immediately of another crisis he lived through: The HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, where discrimination and stigma was made worse by the government’s inadequate response.Guest: Lesley McClurg, KQED science reporterYou can read Lesley's full story here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered a privately-run immigrant detention center in Bakersfield to stop transferring people to the facility and to provide weekly COVID-19 tests to those inside. Now more than a dozen people detained at the Mesa Verde facility have COVID-19. Meanwhile, calls to get people out of immigration detention centers are overlapping with calls to abolish prisons amid a nationwide movement for racial justice.Guest: Farida Jhabvala Romero, KQED immigration reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sen. Kamala Harris will be the first Black woman and person of Indian descent to run for Vice President on a major party ticket. Many Americans got to know her when she ran for president last year. But we here in the Bay Area have known her for a lot longer. Not just because she was born in Oakland and raised in Berkeley, but because her political career started in San Francisco.Now she's joined Joe Biden's ticket as the Democratic nominee for Vice President. So today, we're diving into how Bay Area politics shaped Kamala Harris.Guest: Marisa Lagos, KQED politics correspondentThis episode originally aired in January 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices