KQED's Forum

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi says that she’s won nearly all the legislative battles that she started — and she characterizes those she hasn’t won simply as “not yet achieved.” Pelosi has exerted her powers of persuasion and negotiation for 37 years as San Francisco’s congressional representative, pushing forward the Affordable Care Act and the Inflation Reduction Act and leveraging behind-the-scenes influence in both Congress and the White House. We talk to Pelosi about the people and principles that motivate her and why she says managing differences in her caucus is like being “a weaver at the loom.” Pelosi’s new memoir is “The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House.”Guests:Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Emerita of the House and U.S. Representative for California's 11th District (San Francisco); author, "The Art of Power: My Story as America's First Woman House Speaker" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California lawmakers approved a landmark bill regulating artificial intelligence on Wednesday. SB 1047, co-authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), aims to curb potential dangers of AI such as misinformation, cyberattacks and the creation of novel biological weapons. It would mandate safety testing for advanced AI models that cost more than $100 million dollars, allow a kill switch for ones that go awry, and add protections for whistleblowers. We’ll talk about how the bill, if signed into law by Governor Newsom, could impact the future of AI in California and across the nation.Guests:Rachael Myrow, senior editor, Silicon Valley News Desk, KQEDCecilia Kang, tech reporter, The New York TimesShirin Ghaffary, AI reporter, Bloomberg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The smell of ink on paper. The handwritten staff recommendations. The plan to only buy one book, and the inevitable exit with five. Visiting a brick-and-mortar bookstore is not just a serotonin-releasing individual experience. Bookstores build community among the aspiring writer employee, the bookworm regular and everyone else who has “an attachment to the store and the store to them.” That’s according to Evan Friss, author of “The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore.” We’ll talk with Friss and with some California bookshop owners about the communities they serve, and we’ll hear from you: What’s your favorite bookstore? Why?Guests:Evan Friss, professor of history, James Madison University; author, "The Bookshop: A History of the American BookstoresBrad Johnson, owner of East Bay Booksellers in OaklandJhoanna Belfer, owner and head booknerd, Bel Canto Books in Long Beach Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a new school year kicks off, San Francisco Unified School District faces several big challenges including pending school closures set to be announced later this month. The district, with a budget of $1.3 billion for this fiscal year, has been overspending for years as enrollment has declined. With its financial reserves running dry, district leaders and school board members have to wrangle in spending to close a $420 million deficit or confront a state takeover. We’ll talk to SFUSD Superintendent Matt Wayne and other experts about the district’s financial problems, what could happen next, and take your questions.Guests:Jill Tucker, K-12 Education Reporter, San Francisco ChronicleMark Sanchez, commissioner, San Francisco School Board of Education - San Francisco Unified School DistrictMatt Wayne, superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tech companies often portray their AI products as self-sufficient systems that learn from large datasets. However, AI development in reality relies heavily on a global workforce of undervalued workers, including data annotators, content moderators and machine learning engineers, who endure long hours for low pay while performing repetitive tasks. A new book, “Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I.”, exposes the harsh conditions these workers face and the human labor essential to AI’s growth. We talk with one of the book’s authors, James Muldoon, to learn more and how we can better protect the rights of low-wage AI workers.Guests:James Muldoon, Associate Professor, University of Essex - Research Associate at University of Oxford’s Internet Institute Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The crisis in Sudan, now in its second year, has been called the “Forgotten War.” While in the early 2000s, ethnic cleansing in Darfur, a region of Sudan, attracted the attention of politicians, journalists and celebrities, the current conflict – which pits two military factions against each other and the civilian population –rarely makes the front page. But the crisis in Sudan is acute: Since the war began, 150,000 people have been killed, 10 million more displaced, women and girls have been subjected to systemic sexual violence rooted in ethnic cleansing, and now, the nation is on the brink of a manmade famine that threatens to cause a “catastrophic level of hunger.” We’ll talk to experts about the war and efforts to stem the humanitarian crisis.Guests:Khalid Mustafa Medani, associate professor, McGill University - Medani is director of the Institute of Islamic Studies and Chair of the African Studies Program; his most recent article is "The Struggle for Sudan"Gabriele Steinhauser, Africa Bureau Chief, Wall Street Journal - Steinhauser is based in Johannesburg, and reported from Sudan in June. Her most recent piece is titled "War Tears Apart Sudan's Capital City"Akshaya Kumar, director of crisis advocacy, Human Rights WatchAlaa Suliman, human and professional development officer, Sudanese Association of Northern California, which is based in Hayward, California Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ketamine is perhaps best known as a party drug, and it has long been used in hospitals as an anesthetic. In recent years, it has also been touted as a promising, experimental psychiatric treatment. But when Friends actor Matthew Perry overdosed on ketamine last year, it exposed a network of unregulated clinics and unscrupulous doctors distributing the drug for off-label uses. In this hour, we’ll talk with experts about what we know — so far — about ketamine’s efficacy and safety.Guests:Smita Das, clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Stanford Medicine; vice president of complex care and psychiatry, Lyra HealthGerard Sanacora, professor of psychiatry and director, Yale Depression Research Program at the Yale School of Medicine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California’s neighbors, Arizona and Nevada, stand out as pivotal swing states in this year’s presidential election, each with a large bloc of independent voters. Arizona’s shifting demographics and growing urban centers like Phoenix and Tucson, and Nevada’s blend of urban and rural populations, particularly in Clark County, make both states critical battlegrounds for both parties. We take a look at the key issues influencing voters in each state and examine the factors that might determine who secures those crucial electoral votes.Guests:Andy Crosby, assistant professor in the School of Public Policy, UC RiversideThom Reilly, professor, Arizona State University; co-director, Center for an Independent and Sustainable DemocracyJessica Hill, reporter, Las Vegas Review Journal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ukraine has brought the war to Russia. Its incursion on Aug. 6 into the Kursk region marks the largest invasion of Russia since World War II. It also marks a shift in strategy for Ukraine and carries significant risks. We’ll talk about what Ukraine’s incursion signals at this point in the war – and how Moscow and the US are responding – two and a half years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.Guests:Illia Ponomarenko, journalist and author, "I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv”; former defense and security reporter, The Kyiv Post; co-founder, The Kyiv Independent. He has covered the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict's beginning, as well as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University - and former U.S ambassador to RussiaGreg Myre, national security correspondent, NPR Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novelist and Atlantic staff writer Xochitl Gonzalez joins us to talk about her recent essay, a personal history about growing up with a mother who was largely absent from her life. Her mother, Andrea Gonzalez, joined the Socialist Workers Party as a young woman from Brooklyn, and devoted decades of her life to the cause and running for various political offices including vice president of the United States. As a child Gonzalez admired her mother, “My mother hadn’t ditched me; she was working to save the world from the ravages of capitalism,” she writes in her piece. We’ll talk with Gonzalez about coming to terms with her absent mother and what happens when a parent chooses political activism over their child.Guest:Xochitl Gonzalez, staff writer, The Atlantic; novelist, “To Save The World, My Mother Abandoned Me” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices