KQED's Forum

In the first half of the 20th century, California forcibly sterilized more than 20,000 people in state hospitals and other institutions, under a 1909 eugenics law that remained on the books for seven decades. The victims, deemed by the state as "feeble-minded" or otherwise unfit to have children, were disproportionately women and racial minorities. Now, the state is set to pay reparations to hundreds of survivors, as well as to victims who were involuntarily sterilized in state prisons well after the eugenics law was repealed in 1979. We'll talk about this dark chapter of California history and its survivors' quest for justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Joe Biden lashed out at Facebook last week, saying the site was killing people by spreading coronavirus-vaccine misinformation. As New York Times reporters Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel highlight in their new book An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebooks Battle for Domination, conspiracy theories and hate speech are not just problems that plague the company, they are the inevitable byproducts of the company's algorithms which keep users glued to the screen and mines their data. Relying on 400 interviews of current and former employees and executives, Kang and Frankel give an insiders view of how Facebook influenced the 2016 election, the Trump era and the January 6th insurrection and how the company struggles to create policies that can stay ahead of the challenges created by its own technology. We talk to Kang and Frenkel about their book, and growing tensions between Facebook and the Biden administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer and director John Singleton’s 1991 debut film “Boyz N the Hood,” centered on the coming of age of a Black man in South Central Los Angeles named Tre. Played by Cuba Gooding Jr., Tre learns lessons about Black manhood, cyclical violence and gentrification from his father, played by Laurence Fishburne, and his neighbors, with standout performances by Ice Cube and Morris Chestnut. Some critics called the film the cinematic equivalent of N.W.A.’s music, from which it draws its title, for drawing attention to the high mortality rates of and mainstream apathy to the plight of those residing in majority-Black neighborhoods in 1990s Los Angeles County. We’ll talk about the characters, moments and themes from the film that have stayed with us, three decades later. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Germany, searches for the missing continue in the wake of recent catastrophic flooding that destroyed villages and claimed almost 200 lives so far. That disaster, together with wildfires that rage in Canada and the western U.S. and record-breaking temperatures in Russia, led New York Times climate correspondent Somini Sengupta to conclude that “the world as a whole is neither prepared to slow down climate change, nor live with it.” We’ll talk to Sengupta about why even wealthy countries are ill-equipped to deal with the worst effects of climate change and what it will take to force international action. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California’s ongoing drought and predicted heatwave is causing overly warm and low level waters and threatening to kill off the entire populations of already endangered species like the chinook salmon. Negotiations between the State Water Resources Control Board and the federal Bureau of Reclamation approved a plan for managing water levels. However, experts predict that releasing water into the irrigation system this early will disrupt salmon spawning season and could kill as many as 88% of the salmon in the river. These complications coincide with the increase in a parasite that’s also killing off the fish. We discuss the impact of poor water conditions and increasing heat and hear what creative options are on the table to save the salmon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fuel breaks and prescribed burns are some of the tools used by firefighters to help reduce the severity of wildfires. California Governor Gavin Newsom was recently criticized for misrepresenting his track record when it comes to wildfire prevention, clearing just a fraction of the acreage claimed. The state has now set aside an additional $500 million for wildfire prevention, but will it be enough? As we head toward peak fire season this fall, we’ll get the latest science around wildfire prevention and hear what the state is doing to try to prevent out of control wildfires. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the U.S. are in limbo, after a Texas judge ruled on Friday that former President Barack Obama illegally launched the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012. The ruling does not end legal protections for the roughly 650,000 current DACA participants who came to the United States as children and who are not residents or citizens. However the legal decision does suspend approvals of new applications and leaves open the door for DACA to end in the future. President Biden has already pledged to appeal the ruling and called on Congress to protect so-called Dreamers and create a path to citizenship for millions of people who lack legal status in the United States. In this hour, we get an overview of the legal decision and what happens next and also hear from immigrants and families who could be hurt by this decision, now and in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California has almost 3 million children 5 years old and under. Hundreds of thousands of these kids lack affordable childcare because of backlogs in the state’s subsidized childcare program. The pandemic --which led to the closure of 8,500 childcare facilities--only worsened the bottleneck. And lack of childcare means that in many households one--or both parents--won’t be able to work. In this hour, we examine the long term access and affordability problems in early childhood care and how it affects the state’s persistent achievement gap. We’ll also hear about a state plan to phase in universal transitional kindergarten. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many of us spent the better part of the last pandemic year taking pains to minimize interactions with people outside our households or pods. With social venues now reopened, many vaccinated adults have the chance to meet new people and chat at length again — but do we remember how to talk to strangers? Journalist Joe Keohane joins us to remind us how and to explain why even small talk and passing interactions with those we don’t know can enhance happiness, cognitive functioning and our sense of belonging. We want to hear from you: Tell us about a memorable time that you connected with a stranger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a major breakthrough, scientists at UC San Francisco developed technology to decode words from the brain activity of a paralyzed man who is unable to speak and translate them to text that appears on a screen. The technology, known as a “speech neuroprosthesis,” may hold promise for the thousands of people each year who lose speech owing to a stroke, accident or disease. We’ll talk to the researchers about their achievement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices