KQED's Forum

California on Friday dropped its requirement that those attending indoor events with more than 1000 people show proof of vaccination or a negative test, the latest manifestation of the state's decision to manage COVID-19 as an endemic virus as cases and deaths level off statewide. But public health officials are watching the highly transmissible omicron subvariant BA.2, which has caused surges in parts of Europe and Asia and, recently, in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. We’ll take stock of how California is faring in this stage, and we’ll also look at recent studies on the longer term cognitive and cardiovascular impacts of coronavirus infection. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On March 2, a father in Sacramento walked into a church for a supervised visit with his three young children. He ended up killing five people: his children, the church member who volunteered to chaperone, and himself. This is a scenario that journalist Mark Follman is all too familiar with. An editor for the magazine Mother Jones, Follman has studied mass shootings for years, and even built a database of such murders because none had previously existed. For his new book, “Trigger Points,” Follman attempts to understand what might be done to prevent shootings before they happen. He’s talked to criminologists and mental health specialists to understand the psychology of mass shooters and looks at whether a model exists for intervening constructively with troubled people before they get their hands on a weapon. We’ll talk to Follman about his book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the new Apple TV+ series “Pachinko,” adapted from the bestselling novel by Min Jin Lee, every generation is in dialogue, either indirectly or directly, with the ones that come before and after it. That’s according to Soo Hugh, the series’ creator, showrunner and writer. “Pachinko,” a sweeping multi-generational family drama, features the story of Sunja, played by Oscar winner Yuh-Jung Youn, an impoverished young woman who suffers through the 20th century Japanese occupation of Korea, and later with her family faces of life of hardship and discrimination in Japan. We’ll talk to Hugh about the creative challenges of adapting a beloved novel and what it’s like to create spaces for the telling of diverse stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Youth leaders and activists in Sacramento are working to support their communities today, a day after the 2 a.m. shooting in Sacramento that left 6 dead and at least 12 wounded. Videos on social media, eyewitness accounts, and police statements indicate the shooting occurred at 10th and K streets, roughly two blocks northwest of the state Capitol, as club and bar attendees were leaving for the night. Political leaders immediately responded with calls for stronger gun controls in the state. “Thoughts and prayers aren’t nearly enough,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said on Sunday. “We must do more as a city, as a state, and as a nation. This senseless epidemic of gun violence must be addressed. How many unending tragedies does it take before we begin to cure the sickness in this country? Let us be honest, this is a sickness.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In response to the war in Ukraine, the United States and its allies have implemented sweeping and unprecedented set sanctions against Russia, rendering the nation a pariah state. Flight space has been closed. Export of goods that could be used for military purposes have been banned. Some countries have stopped importing Russian oil. The yachts and private planes of oligarchs have been seized. Transactions with the Russian Central Bank are now barred and both government and individual bank accounts have been frozen. But are these sanctions working to stop the war? Will they lead to the toppling of Russian President Vladimir Putin? We’ll talk about sanctions and how they work with a panel of experts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With his new single “OFF” reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult R&B Radio chart this week and a new arena tour, Grammy Award-winning singer Maxwell is back in the spotlight. The Night Tour features fellow R&B acts Anthony Hamilton and Joe, and is scheduled to come to Los Angeles and Oakland in mid-April. Maxwell says you can expect a “sexy” show that pays homage to women and feminine energies. We talk to Maxwell about getting back on the road, his upcoming album, his favorite song to perform, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Netflix series, “Inventing Anna,” reached No. 1 on Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming rankings and has dominated social media discussions for weeks. But it’s not just the profile of wannabe socialite Anna Delvey capturing our interest – television series about scammers abound these days, including former venture capital darlings like WeWork’s Adam Neumann and Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes in the shows “WeCrashed” and “The Dropout.” Not to mention podcasts, documentaries and longform articles that often inspire the fictionalized versions. What is the human behavior driving this interest: Is it just schadenfreude? Or are there other elements informing our interest? We’ll explore this latest content trend and why, as a culture, we’re so into scammer stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joshua Miele is a 2021 MacArthur fellow who develops and invents adaptive technologies for blind and visually impaired persons ranging from tactile-Braille street maps to crowd-sourced audio descriptions for YouTube videos. But back in fall 1987, he was a freshman at UC Berkeley and newly a member of “The Cave,” a library basement gathering hub for Berkeley’s blind students. Following the disability rights movement spearheaded at Berkeley in the ‘60s and ‘70s, The Cave provided its denizens with a space for community, inspiration and innovation as they entered the digital age. We’ll talk about how The Cave was crucial for the innovations of Miele and other alumni, its enduring legacies, and how accessibility tech has progressed in the past few decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Benjamin Franklin is “the most amazing American of the 18th century,” according to documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Burns’ latest documentary on Franklin premieres on PBS next week, and it looks at the ways in which the 18th century reluctant revolutionary operated within a political climate not dissimilar from our own. To Burns, Franklin’s political thinking could help inform modern questions about American identity, partisan divides, international diplomacy and even vaccines. Burns joins us to talk about Franklin's flaws, contradictions and contributions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three out of four of the planet’s known animal species are insects, and their populations are crashing as a result of climate change, habitat loss, pesticides and pollution. And the ecosystem-wide effects of all of these losses could be deadly for humanity: globally, one-third of our food is pollinated by bees, flies, butterflies, moths and beetles. We’ll talk with Oliver Milman about his new book, “The Insect Crisis” — and how we can protect what he calls “the miniature empires that hold life aloft on our raucous, plastic-strewn, beautiful planet.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices