0:08 – Mondays with Mitch: police killing of Steven Demarco Taylor yesterday at a Walmart in San Leandro yesterday, plus the latest on the coronavirus relief funds, why some people have not received checks yet, and more on Congress struggling to continue operations.
0:34 – Transportation in the time of COVID-19
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez (@FitzTheReporter) transportation reporter and columnist for the San Francisco Examiner. He’s covering impacts on BART and SFMTA during this pandemic, his latest piece is ‘Bay Area transit’s financial future hinges on $780 million emergency aid vote.
Lois Becket (@loisbeckett) senior reporter for The Guardian, just out with a national story on transit worker deaths during the pandemic. Her latest piece looks at deaths of transit workers nation wide: ‘We’re risking our lives out here, every day’: US bus drivers lack basic life-saving protections.
1:08 – Grading Gavin Newsom’s transparency
Anita Chabria (@anitachabria) covers California state politics and policy for the Los Angeles Times and is based in Sacramento. She joins us to discuss her latest reporting on the Newsom administration – “So much is unknown about the pandemic because the government keeps a lid on it”
1:22 – KPFA News: Following reports based on limited data that there’s a stunning racial disparity in who’s dying from the novel coronavirus, Democrats introduced a bill last week to require the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, to break out statistics on COVID testing, treatment, and deaths by race and ethnicity. KPFA’s Chris Lee reports.
1:27 – KPFA News: The pandemic’s prompted a push for expanded vote-by-mail and early voting to help voters keep a safe distance from one another. For a lot of states, time’s running out to re-tool their elections systems. KPFA´s Kate Iida reports.
1:34 – It’s 4/20: How has COVID changed the cannabis industry?
Sara Payan (@SaraMPayan) is the Public Education Officer at the Apothecarium, a dispensary in San Francisco; she’s also a member of the San Francisco Cannabis Oversight Committee and host of the podcast “Planted with Sara Payan.”
1:47 – KPFA News: The Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have imposed a lockdown on the Palestinian territory. They’re hoping to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Gaza is one of the most densely populated regions on earth and already suffers from an overstressed and poorly resourced health care system. KPFA’s Rami Almeghari (@chrislee_xyz) reports.
1:53 – In honor of National Poetry Month, we feature “Now is all that matters” by Wanda Sabir
Wanda Sabir is a journalist, writer and professor at the College of Alameda. She is also a depth psychologist, focused on historic trauma and trauma healing, and co-founder of MAAFA San Francisco Bay Area, an annual event commemorating the calamity of the Trans-African slave trade. She wrote this piece during shelter in place. It’s called “Now is all that matters”
(Photo by Mitch Jeserich for KPFA)