Smartmouth Podcast | KQED News

Smartmouth Podcast: About the Mission, California Water and an East Bay Tree

KQED’s morning news anchor Joshua Johnson, The California Report host Queena Kim and blog guy Dan Brekke talk about a proposal to freeze new market-rate housing development in San Francisco’s Mission District, the latest news on water conservation efforts amid the drought and an initiative to cut down lots of eucalyptus trees in the East Bay hills.

Smartmouth Podcast: Eviction Wars, a Soccer Scandal — & That Bridge, Again

It’s Episode 6 of KQED’s Smartmouth podcast, our quick review of the week’s top news. This week, KQED blogger/editor Dan Brekke is joined by The California Report host Queena Kim, producer Guy Marzorati to discuss: State Sen. Mark Leno’s latest failed attempt to amend the Ellis Act and stem some evictions in San Francisco. Caltrans’ good news about the Bay Bridge’s eastern span and why we may never be sure that the structure is really all we’ve been promised. And the U.S. Justice Department’s big move against FIFA, soccer’s international governing body. Plus: Love for the Golden State Warriors. And a glimpse into the future of the state’s pot economy.

Spilled Oil, Stadium Dreams and a War Cry: KQED’s Smartmouth Podcast

This week on Smartmouth, we talk about the Santa Barbara County oil spill, the latest twists and turns in the Oakland Raiders’ stadium saga and whether Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who’s squaring off against state Attorney General Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate, will suffer lasting damage from an inopportune utterance. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Housing, BART and Strange Water: KQED News Smartmouth Podcast

http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/RDnews/2015/05/smartmouth150507.mp3 This week on Smartmouth, KQED’s Queena Kim, Joshua Johnson and I are talking about: There’s no place like home: Month after month, and now year after year, we’ve been hearing about our region’s housing crisis; or to be a little more specific, about the astonishingly fast rise in housing costs and the rapidly dwindling supply of housing regular folks — those not endowed with six-figure salaries or better — can afford. This week, the issue came to a head in both San Francisco, where Supervisor David Campos proposed a moratorium on market-rate housing in the Mission District, and Oakland, where housing activists shut down a City Council meeting that was to consider a Lake Merritt high-rise. Are there solutions to this housing thing? BART — and you’re where? Last week, we talked about the big money challenges BART faces as it tries to upgrade its aging system. This week, BART suffered a daylong meltdown after a rail broke in San Francisco. Beyond paying for BART’s makeover, where are the visionary ideas that might help create a revamped transit system for the region? Strange water: We can hardly go a day, let alone a week, without some new concern about our drought-ravaged water supply. This week’s example: A story in the Los Angeles Times detailing concern about treated wastewater from Central Valley petroleum operations that’s being used to irrigate some crops. Is this “Idiocracy” or a smart workaround to deal with water that no one else wants to deal with?

BART, a Visitor from Japan, and Body Cameras: KQED News Smartmouth Podcast

http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/RDnews/2015/04/smartmouth150430.mp3 On this week’s episode of Smartmouth, we talk about Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the Bay Area, the California state auditor’s report card on BART finances (and who will pay to keep the system going), and new developments in the statewide push to get police officers to wear body cameras. Oh, yeah — the “we” discussing these stories: Joshua Johnson, KQED News morning anchor; Queena Kim, host of KQED’s The California Report; and yours truly, blogger and chief bottle washer for KQED’s News Fix blog.