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"slug": "california-fired-teacher-sexual-harassment",
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"content": "\u003cp>This\u003cem> article was produced for \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/local-reporting-network\">ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network\u003c/a> in partnership with \u003c/em>\u003cem>KQED\u003c/em>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/newsletters/dispatches\">\u003cem>Sign up for Dispatches\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> to get stories like this one as soon as they are published. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jason Agan was impossible to miss at Angelo Rodriguez High School. The Bay Area teacher was loud and gregarious, a fixture on campus since the Fairfield school opened in 2001. He ran the student government and called himself the man behind the curtain, organizing pep rallies and prom. He taught AP calculus, so advanced math students ended up in his classroom, jostling for his approval and letters of recommendation. Some considered him a mentor who inspired a love of math — and even a second father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for years, students also whispered about Agan’s behavior, according to interviews with 14 Rodriguez High graduates, most of whom he had taught. He touched some of them in public in ways that made them uncomfortable, they said, including hugging students and massaging their shoulders. And he seemed fixated on enforcing the dress code, calling out girls whose shorts were too short.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly two decades into Agan’s tenure, and on the heels of the #MeToo movement, students had enough. At least 11 students and one parent submitted written complaints about his behavior to school administrators in 2018, drawing at least two warnings to stop, a KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> investigation found. By January 2019, the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District had taken steps to fire him, suspending him without pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan pushed back, and nearly a year later, an independent panel convened by the state to hear his case deemed him “unfit to teach.” The panel’s decision meant that the popular educator was officially out of the job where he had spent his entire teaching career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the panel’s review only addressed his employment at this one school district, and its finding was not shared publicly. It would be up to the state’s teacher licensing agency to determine whether additional discipline would be imposed, including whether Agan could keep teaching in California public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next three years, Agan was hired at a second school and then a third. During that period, the state issued a one-week suspension of his teaching license for his behavior at his first school. Then, Agan faced another accusation of unwanted touching — this time, by an eighth grader at his second school, according to school records. The state’s teaching credentialing agency did not inform the other schools or the parents of students in Agan’s classes of the full extent of what went on at Rodriguez High.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082860\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082860 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-12.jpg\" alt=\"A page in a yearbook that includes a photo of a man looking through a doorway and a feature on Jason Agan under the title, “Equations & Headaches.”\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-12.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-12-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-12-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Math teacher Jason Agan, in the 2017-18 Rodriguez High School yearbook, said his goal is to “make RHS a place where all students can feel comfortable and safe.” The school district fired him in 2019 for sexually harassing students. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Agan, now 47, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, and someone at his address hung up when a reporter rang his apartment buzzer and identified herself. Nor did he respond to questions sent via email or certified mail to his home about students’ accusations and his job history. He previously denied any sexual motivation in touching students, telling the independent panel that he was simply offering students support and encouragement — not massaging them, according to records obtained by the news outlets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A broad look at California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing by KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> shows a pattern of delays and inaction, combined with a lack of transparency, that has allowed educators to continue teaching after school districts reported them to the state for sexual harassment or other misconduct of a sexual nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan’s case is one of at least 67 in which the state has not revoked the professional licenses of educators after school districts determined they had sexually harassed students or committed other types of sexual misconduct, according to a review of available records from 2019 through 2025 obtained by the news outlets. At least 14 of those educators were rehired by other schools, and of those, at least 12, including Agan, still work in education, according to a review of school websites and employment records provided by schools.[aside postID=news_12057191 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250924-ASPIRE-SAFETY-CONDITIONS-MD-03_qed.jpg']Anita Fitzhugh, a spokesperson for the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, said the state automatically revokes teachers’ credentials when they are convicted of sexual criminal offenses, but not necessarily when a district determines they have committed sexual misconduct. She said the state Legislature — not the licensing agency — determines the type of misconduct that results in automatic revocation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency appoints a committee to assess noncriminal cases of misconduct, she said. Agan has not been accused of a crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Commission’s authority balances protecting students as well as the legal rights of educators who have been accused but not convicted of specific crimes,” Fitzhugh said in a written statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency’s disciplinary process is unique among licensing bodies in California in how much is kept secret, Fitzhugh said. The fact that a teacher has been disciplined is noted on a state website of credentialed educators, but the database does not explain why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, the licensing bodies governing dozens of other professions in California, including doctors, nurses, police officers and lawyers, make the reasons that disciplinary actions were imposed easily accessible on their websites. And at least 12 states, including Oregon, Washington and Florida, do the same for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If our job as teachers is to keep children safe, we have to be held accountable for things we do that could harm them,” said Alicia DeRollo, a longtime teacher who served as one of 19 commissioners on California’s teacher licensing agency from 2011 to 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid this gap in oversight, Agan found two new jobs and remains in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Student complaints start piling up\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For 17 years, Agan taught at Rodriguez High, a sprawling open-air campus nestled alongside rolling hills where cows graze. The school serves the racially diverse commuter town of Fairfield, halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in 2018, several sophomores in his accelerated math class reported him to school administrators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One girl alleged that he took her phone out of her back pocket while she was sitting down taking a test and that he would massage girls’ shoulders in class, according to school records. Assistant principal Gary Hiner cautioned Agan to be careful, sharing that students had told him they were uncomfortable when the teacher walked around class and touched them, according to a summary Hiner wrote about the spoken warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082859\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-05.jpg\" alt=\"A sign that reads, “Rodriguez High School” and “Home of the Mustangs” outside surrounded by trees and bushes.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-05.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-05-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-05-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The entrance to Rodriguez High School in Fairfield, California. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In March 2018, a father emailed another administrator after Agan wore a shirt to school that used the Pi symbol to spell out “Pimp.” The father wrote that a teacher should not be wearing a shirt making light of someone who “sexually exploits people for profit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This time, assistant principal Allison Klein emailed Agan, reminding him that school was not the place for “physically touching students, inappropriate innuendo, or jokes in poor taste.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the next school year, more students complained, records show. In October 2018, a student told her school counselor and then Hiner that Agan had come up behind her and started massaging her neck beneath her long hair. The student said she felt violated and froze, unsure of what to do, records show. She talked to her peers about Agan to see if others had similar experiences, and told Hiner that those classmates said he also made inappropriate comments and touched students in his leadership class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The student was so distraught that she asked to transfer out of the math class and had a panic attack two days later in the school psychologist’s office, school records show. Neither Hiner nor Klein agreed to be interviewed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within weeks, at least nine more students submitted written complaints, alleging that Agan had massaged their shoulders and singled out female students for what they wore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was a case of someone overstepping boundaries, and we’re not afraid to call this person out,” said Julia Steed, who was a 15-year-old sophomore when she wrote to school administrators alleging that Agan “had tendencies to touch students,” including palming her head during class. “We were like, ‘Oh no, we’re not dealing with this.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082858\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082858 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-CATeacherDiscipline-17.jpg\" alt=\"A woman in her twenties sits on a sofa and looks at the camera with a serious expression.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-CATeacherDiscipline-17.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-CATeacherDiscipline-17-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-CATeacherDiscipline-17-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julia Steed, a Rodriguez High graduate, had complained to school administrators about Agan touching students. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Steed, now 23, told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that she and her classmates were emboldened by the #MeToo movement to speak out as teenagers across the country were gaining more awareness of boundaries and consent. By the end of 2018, the Fairfield-Suisun school board approved the superintendent’s recommendation to fire Agan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan objected and demanded a hearing, something tenured California public school teachers facing termination are entitled to. His case would be evaluated by an independent panel, which would decide whether to uphold the district’s recommendation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School districts rarely fire tenured teachers because losing a case is expensive, and the teacher can wind up back in the job. Instead, many districts negotiate settlements that allow teachers to resign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in Agan’s case, Kris Corey, the Fairfield-Suisun superintendent at the time, said she and the school board believed they had a strong case for termination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The board said, ‘We don’t care how much this costs. We are going to a hearing,’” Corey said. “It’s the principle of the matter. This is not OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For eight days in the Fairfield-Suisun district office beginning in July 2019, the three-member panel, including a teacher selected by Agan, heard testimony from students, teachers and administrators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven students, three administrators, a former guidance counselor and a parent spoke against Agan. Six of the students told the panel that Agan made them uncomfortable by touching them or commenting on their clothing, including calling one girl “short shorts.” Four of them, including Steed, said they did not feel comfortable going to Agan for extra help with math because they did not want to be alone with him. Several also said they refrained from speaking in class to avoid attracting his attention.[aside postID=news_12055955 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250909-BERRYESSAUNIONCLOSURES_03248_TV-KQED.jpg']Four former students, three teachers and a staff member spoke on Agan’s behalf. The former students described Agan as a supportive mentor and caring teacher and said they felt at home in his classroom. All four students said he squeezed, rubbed or touched their shoulders, but that his actions did not make them uncomfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those students told KQED and\u003cem> ProPublica\u003c/em> that her opinion about the teacher’s behavior has changed in recent years. She said she had considered his physical contact normal while in high school. But her perspective shifted as she got older, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went to college and talked to people and realized it wasn’t normal,” said the former student, now in her 20s. “Looking back at it, I would have jumped to the other side, to be quite honest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the hearing, Agan testified that he would have stopped touching students’ shoulders if he had been clearly warned, according to a summary included in the panel’s decision. He said he became comfortable with his leadership students, and his actions carried over to math students even though he wasn’t as close with them. He denied massaging students’ shoulders and said students misinterpreted “squeezes or shakes” as massages. He said he did not intend to make students feel uncomfortable and regretted that some students did not feel safe in his class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the administrators, former director of human resources Mike Minahen, told the panel that the details students shared with him during his investigation “weighed heavy” on him. He said it was unusual for high school students to “break the code” and come forward to make a complaint about a teacher, “especially a leadership teacher who has influence over student activities throughout the entire school.” Minahen, who has retired, declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November 2019, the panel unanimously decided Agan should lose his job. Even the teacher chosen by Agan agreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The likelihood of recurrence is high,” the panel wrote in its decision. “Over time, he has shown that he cannot or will not exercise good judgment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the panelists told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that she voted to terminate Agan’s employment in part because his alleged behavior continued even after administrators issued warnings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His actions were making students, particularly young women, want to not take advanced math classes. They didn’t want to be touched,” said the panelist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize her job in education. “All that directly impacts their access to good colleges because he was a calculus teacher.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2019, school district officials sent documentation of Agan’s firing, along with details of their investigation, to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, California’s educator licensing agency, as state law requires for public school teachers who resign or are fired for misconduct. The educator licensing agency would decide whether Agan would be disciplined further, such as receiving a public warning, facing a suspension or losing his license to teach in a California public school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disciplinary process typically takes one year, according to the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would take the state licensing board nearly 500 days to decide what to do in Agan’s case.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How Agan returned to the classroom\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As the state considered the matter, Agan applied for a job at a Sacramento middle school about an hour away from Rodriguez High in May 2020. It was a time of heightened teacher shortages, especially in subjects like math, during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan provided stellar letters of recommendation from former teaching colleagues in his application, which school representatives provided to KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> in response to a public records request.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any school searching Agan’s name on California’s credentialing database would have seen a clean record and valid credentials indicating he was legally fit to teach. That’s because while the state licensing agency knew Agan had been fired for what the district described as sexually harassing students, California law prevented the agency from disclosing information about the case. Nowhere \u003ca href=\"https://educator.ctc.ca.gov/siebel/app/esales/enu?SWECmd=GotoView&SWEView=CTC+Person+Adverse+Action+Public+View+Web&SWERF=1&SWEHo=&SWEBU=1&SWEApplet0=CTC+Public+Person+Detail+Form+Applet+Web&SWERowId0=1-27L-88&SWEApplet1=CTC+Adverse+Action+Applet+Web&SWERowId1=2-499IB5\">in the online public records\u003c/a> did it say that Agan remained under investigation by the agency — let alone any details of his employment record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his application for the middle school job, Agan acknowledged that he had been fired after being “accused of inappropriately touching students on the shoulders during class.” He wrote that he disagreed with the dismissal and explained that he would often place his hands on students’ shoulders while helping them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Math is a difficult subject for many and my actions were meant as a means of encouragement; a way to say, ‘It’s OK that you’re having trouble, keep trying,’” Agan wrote, adding that he recognized his actions “made some students feel uncomfortable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan started teaching at Ephraim Williams College Prep Middle School that fall. The 175-person school is part of the Fortune network of charter schools. Administrators at Ephraim Williams at the time of Agan’s hiring did not respond to questions about how the school vetted him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082857 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-20.jpg\" alt=\"A school building with a sign in front of it that shows a photograph of a student and text that reads, “Enroll Today! 6-8 grades.”\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-20.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-20-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-20-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ephraim Williams College Prep Middle School, a charter school in Sacramento. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Former Fortune human resources consultant Rick Rubino, who helped the middle school recruit, interview and hire candidates at the time Agan was applying, said the school was not aware that Agan’s former employer concluded that he had sexually harassed multiple students. “Do you think any reasonable school district or principal would hire that person?” Rubino said. “No. So clearly, Fortune School did not get that information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rubino said he “would guarantee that somebody at Fortune called the principal at the school where Jason Agan was teaching in Fairfield and got a good report.” He said he does not remember making that call himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The former principal at Rodriguez High did not respond to questions about a reference check. But a Fortune School spokesperson, Tiffany Moffatt, said school officials follow “all state guidelines and regulations and conduct thorough vetting, making decisions based on the information available to us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t until near the end of Agan’s first school year at Ephraim Williams that the state licensing agency issued its decision regarding his actions at his first school. In May 2021, the state suspended Agan’s license for seven days; two of those days fell on a weekend. The sanction — along with a red flag icon — appeared in the state’s public database of credentialed educators. This would be the only visible clue schools would have of anything amiss in Agan’s work history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corey, the former superintendent of Fairfield-Suisun Unified, told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that she was “flabbergasted” that he had only been suspended for seven days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a real mismatch of what happened,” Corey said. “What a disservice it was to those girls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steed, one of Agan’s accusers, said students had done the right thing and shared their concerns about Agan with their school, only for adults at the state level to give him the opportunity to teach elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s even the point of going through this whole process?” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A middle school student details unwanted touching\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In September 2021, a month after Fortune students returned to in-person learning, an eighth grader at Agan’s second school complained about his conduct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The student told her doctor during a routine physical that Agan had touched her lower back, according to a summary of the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The girl’s mother told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that she reported the incident to the principal, who connected mother and daughter with Rubino, Fortune’s human resources consultant. The mother told Rubino that Agan was giving her daughter a disproportionate amount of attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The girl, who is now 17, spoke to KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> on the condition that only her middle name, Sherelle, be used because she is a minor. Leslie, the student’s mother, is also being identified by her middle name to protect her daughter’s identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082856\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082856 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-AnonymousPhotos-09.jpg\" alt=\"A 17-year-old girl and a woman stand outside with their backs to the camera. The woman rests her hand on the girl’s back in an embrace.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-AnonymousPhotos-09.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-AnonymousPhotos-09-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-AnonymousPhotos-09-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sherelle, left, and her mother, Leslie, at their home. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In that same meeting, Sherelle told Rubino that Agan removed his hand from her lower back after she asked him to stop, and he returned to the front of the classroom. But he came back moments later and placed his hand on her shoulder, according to a letter of warning Rubino wrote to Agan after interviewing the girl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt disrespected. I felt uncomfortable. I felt mad,” Sherelle told the news outlets about the incident. “I felt like even speaking up didn’t matter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his letter, Rubino directed Agan to stop touching students and “dial back” his praise for the girl. Rubino also cautioned that failure to comply could result in further disciplinary action, up to suspension or termination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan denied the allegations in a written response to Rubino obtained by KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em>. “I would like to be on record that I dispute it being listed as a ‘fact’ that I touched [the student] on the lower back,” Agan wrote. “I have been extremely diligent in avoiding personal contact with scholars due to my previous experience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leslie had texted Rubino expressing concern about how Agan was vetted for the job after she said she saw online posts by students at his former school alleging that he had touched them inappropriately.[aside postID=news_12053938 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/20230608_ksuzuki_adelanteschool-172_qed.jpg']“Actually, I was the one who investigated the matter in the Fairfield Suisun School District when Mr. Agan was a candidate,” Rubino texted back that same day in messages reviewed by KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em>. “I also checked social media and Google to see if I could find any information about the incident in Fairfield, but I did not find anything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rubino did not answer subsequent questions about the details of his investigation or how much he knew about Agan’s conduct at the teacher’s previous school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the state licensing agency recommends that educators be disciplined, California law allows it to release its findings, which include a summary of the case, to current supervisors and prospective employers who request it within five years. Fortune appears never to have asked for such findings, according to the logs of these requests between 2020 and 2024 provided by the agency to KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em>. A Fortune spokesperson did not say why the charter school did not ask for the information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leslie said her daughter’s experience at Ephraim Williams only worsened after she reported Agan. Math has always been Sherelle’s favorite subject. But as the school year went on, her grades in Agan’s class plummeted. She needed help but said Agan ignored her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With just weeks left in the school year, Leslie pulled her daughter out of Ephraim Williams to finish eighth grade at another school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She only learned about Agan’s disciplinary history when KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> contacted her in January. “The whole education system would rather protect him,” Leslie said. “You let him loose on all these kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fitzhugh, spokesperson for the teacher licensing agency, said the commission is “committed to keeping all students and schools safe,” but is bound by the law in how it disciplines teachers. “The Commission stands ready to implement any additional public protections that the Legislature authorizes,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting the following year, in 2022, records show that Fortune offered Agan a role supporting new teachers rather than assigning him his own classroom. Fortune administrators did not respond to questions about why he was offered the position, which he declined because he had received another job offer in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thank you for the last two years,” Agan wrote, resigning from the school. “It has meant more to me than you could ever know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082861\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082861 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260417-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-02.jpg\" alt=\"A school building with a sign in front of it that reads, “Clifford School”\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260417-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260417-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260417-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clifford School, a prekindergarten through eighth grade public school in Redwood City, California. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By August 2022, Agan would begin teaching at Clifford School, which serves students in pre-K through eighth grade in Redwood City. He received tenure in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wendy Kelly, deputy superintendent at the Redwood City School District, declined to answer questions about Agan’s hiring or say whether the school district was aware he had been accused of misconduct at two previous schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that the district, when hiring, typically calls candidates’ immediate supervisors and checks the database of licensed educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said school districts rely on decisions by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to “put the best people in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was pleased to see that the suspension was only seven days,” Kelly said of Agan’s discipline. “I have to trust that when the CTC reinstates the teacher, that the issue has been either resolved, learned from, there’s been consequences in place, which is why they’re employable to the next organization.\u003cem>” \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>***\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How we reported this story\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>KQED and\u003cem> ProPublica\u003c/em> obtained detailed teacher disciplinary records from school districts after filing public records requests with the 300 largest districts in California. We asked for records of sexual misconduct complaints from 2019 through 2025, including any reports to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. More than 150 districts provided records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the district determined that an educator had committed misconduct that it characterized as sexual, including sexual harassment by unwanted touching, sending sexual electronic messages and making sexual remarks, we checked the state licensing database to see whether the state had revoked the teacher’s license or imposed other discipline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>***\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Help us report on teacher misconduct in California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you have experience with the state’s opaque teacher disciplinary process, KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> want to hear from you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can fill out a brief form or contact KQED reporter Holly McDede on Signal at hollymcdede.68 or via email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hmcdede@kqed.org\">hmcdede@kqed.org\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://airtable.com/app0AkyDo9b8r1mFR/pagLr7CSAR8lvPhQz/form\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cbr>\nShare Your Experience\u003cbr>\n\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>***\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was reported with support from the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley Journalism and the Fund for Investigative Journalism, with reporting contributions from Luiz H. Monticelli.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://california-newsroom.beehiiv.com/\">The California Newsroom\u003c/a> is a statewide public media collaboration that includes NPR, CalMatters, KQED in San Francisco, LAist and KCRW in Los Angeles, KPBS in San Diego and other partner stations across California.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Math teacher Jason Agan was deemed “unfit to teach.” But the finding was never made public. This is how the state allowed him — and dozens of other educators found to have committed sexual harassment or misconduct — to keep their credentials.",
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"title": "He Was Fired for Sexually Harassing Students. California Allowed Him to Keep Teaching Anyway | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>This\u003cem> article was produced for \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/local-reporting-network\">ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network\u003c/a> in partnership with \u003c/em>\u003cem>KQED\u003c/em>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/newsletters/dispatches\">\u003cem>Sign up for Dispatches\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> to get stories like this one as soon as they are published. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jason Agan was impossible to miss at Angelo Rodriguez High School. The Bay Area teacher was loud and gregarious, a fixture on campus since the Fairfield school opened in 2001. He ran the student government and called himself the man behind the curtain, organizing pep rallies and prom. He taught AP calculus, so advanced math students ended up in his classroom, jostling for his approval and letters of recommendation. Some considered him a mentor who inspired a love of math — and even a second father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for years, students also whispered about Agan’s behavior, according to interviews with 14 Rodriguez High graduates, most of whom he had taught. He touched some of them in public in ways that made them uncomfortable, they said, including hugging students and massaging their shoulders. And he seemed fixated on enforcing the dress code, calling out girls whose shorts were too short.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly two decades into Agan’s tenure, and on the heels of the #MeToo movement, students had enough. At least 11 students and one parent submitted written complaints about his behavior to school administrators in 2018, drawing at least two warnings to stop, a KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> investigation found. By January 2019, the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District had taken steps to fire him, suspending him without pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan pushed back, and nearly a year later, an independent panel convened by the state to hear his case deemed him “unfit to teach.” The panel’s decision meant that the popular educator was officially out of the job where he had spent his entire teaching career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the panel’s review only addressed his employment at this one school district, and its finding was not shared publicly. It would be up to the state’s teacher licensing agency to determine whether additional discipline would be imposed, including whether Agan could keep teaching in California public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next three years, Agan was hired at a second school and then a third. During that period, the state issued a one-week suspension of his teaching license for his behavior at his first school. Then, Agan faced another accusation of unwanted touching — this time, by an eighth grader at his second school, according to school records. The state’s teaching credentialing agency did not inform the other schools or the parents of students in Agan’s classes of the full extent of what went on at Rodriguez High.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082860\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082860 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-12.jpg\" alt=\"A page in a yearbook that includes a photo of a man looking through a doorway and a feature on Jason Agan under the title, “Equations & Headaches.”\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-12.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-12-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-12-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Math teacher Jason Agan, in the 2017-18 Rodriguez High School yearbook, said his goal is to “make RHS a place where all students can feel comfortable and safe.” The school district fired him in 2019 for sexually harassing students. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Agan, now 47, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, and someone at his address hung up when a reporter rang his apartment buzzer and identified herself. Nor did he respond to questions sent via email or certified mail to his home about students’ accusations and his job history. He previously denied any sexual motivation in touching students, telling the independent panel that he was simply offering students support and encouragement — not massaging them, according to records obtained by the news outlets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A broad look at California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing by KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> shows a pattern of delays and inaction, combined with a lack of transparency, that has allowed educators to continue teaching after school districts reported them to the state for sexual harassment or other misconduct of a sexual nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan’s case is one of at least 67 in which the state has not revoked the professional licenses of educators after school districts determined they had sexually harassed students or committed other types of sexual misconduct, according to a review of available records from 2019 through 2025 obtained by the news outlets. At least 14 of those educators were rehired by other schools, and of those, at least 12, including Agan, still work in education, according to a review of school websites and employment records provided by schools.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Anita Fitzhugh, a spokesperson for the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, said the state automatically revokes teachers’ credentials when they are convicted of sexual criminal offenses, but not necessarily when a district determines they have committed sexual misconduct. She said the state Legislature — not the licensing agency — determines the type of misconduct that results in automatic revocation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency appoints a committee to assess noncriminal cases of misconduct, she said. Agan has not been accused of a crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Commission’s authority balances protecting students as well as the legal rights of educators who have been accused but not convicted of specific crimes,” Fitzhugh said in a written statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency’s disciplinary process is unique among licensing bodies in California in how much is kept secret, Fitzhugh said. The fact that a teacher has been disciplined is noted on a state website of credentialed educators, but the database does not explain why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, the licensing bodies governing dozens of other professions in California, including doctors, nurses, police officers and lawyers, make the reasons that disciplinary actions were imposed easily accessible on their websites. And at least 12 states, including Oregon, Washington and Florida, do the same for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If our job as teachers is to keep children safe, we have to be held accountable for things we do that could harm them,” said Alicia DeRollo, a longtime teacher who served as one of 19 commissioners on California’s teacher licensing agency from 2011 to 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid this gap in oversight, Agan found two new jobs and remains in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Student complaints start piling up\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For 17 years, Agan taught at Rodriguez High, a sprawling open-air campus nestled alongside rolling hills where cows graze. The school serves the racially diverse commuter town of Fairfield, halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in 2018, several sophomores in his accelerated math class reported him to school administrators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One girl alleged that he took her phone out of her back pocket while she was sitting down taking a test and that he would massage girls’ shoulders in class, according to school records. Assistant principal Gary Hiner cautioned Agan to be careful, sharing that students had told him they were uncomfortable when the teacher walked around class and touched them, according to a summary Hiner wrote about the spoken warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082859\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-05.jpg\" alt=\"A sign that reads, “Rodriguez High School” and “Home of the Mustangs” outside surrounded by trees and bushes.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-05.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-05-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-05-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The entrance to Rodriguez High School in Fairfield, California. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In March 2018, a father emailed another administrator after Agan wore a shirt to school that used the Pi symbol to spell out “Pimp.” The father wrote that a teacher should not be wearing a shirt making light of someone who “sexually exploits people for profit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This time, assistant principal Allison Klein emailed Agan, reminding him that school was not the place for “physically touching students, inappropriate innuendo, or jokes in poor taste.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the next school year, more students complained, records show. In October 2018, a student told her school counselor and then Hiner that Agan had come up behind her and started massaging her neck beneath her long hair. The student said she felt violated and froze, unsure of what to do, records show. She talked to her peers about Agan to see if others had similar experiences, and told Hiner that those classmates said he also made inappropriate comments and touched students in his leadership class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The student was so distraught that she asked to transfer out of the math class and had a panic attack two days later in the school psychologist’s office, school records show. Neither Hiner nor Klein agreed to be interviewed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within weeks, at least nine more students submitted written complaints, alleging that Agan had massaged their shoulders and singled out female students for what they wore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was a case of someone overstepping boundaries, and we’re not afraid to call this person out,” said Julia Steed, who was a 15-year-old sophomore when she wrote to school administrators alleging that Agan “had tendencies to touch students,” including palming her head during class. “We were like, ‘Oh no, we’re not dealing with this.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082858\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082858 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-CATeacherDiscipline-17.jpg\" alt=\"A woman in her twenties sits on a sofa and looks at the camera with a serious expression.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-CATeacherDiscipline-17.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-CATeacherDiscipline-17-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260324-CATeacherDiscipline-17-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julia Steed, a Rodriguez High graduate, had complained to school administrators about Agan touching students. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Steed, now 23, told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that she and her classmates were emboldened by the #MeToo movement to speak out as teenagers across the country were gaining more awareness of boundaries and consent. By the end of 2018, the Fairfield-Suisun school board approved the superintendent’s recommendation to fire Agan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan objected and demanded a hearing, something tenured California public school teachers facing termination are entitled to. His case would be evaluated by an independent panel, which would decide whether to uphold the district’s recommendation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School districts rarely fire tenured teachers because losing a case is expensive, and the teacher can wind up back in the job. Instead, many districts negotiate settlements that allow teachers to resign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in Agan’s case, Kris Corey, the Fairfield-Suisun superintendent at the time, said she and the school board believed they had a strong case for termination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The board said, ‘We don’t care how much this costs. We are going to a hearing,’” Corey said. “It’s the principle of the matter. This is not OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For eight days in the Fairfield-Suisun district office beginning in July 2019, the three-member panel, including a teacher selected by Agan, heard testimony from students, teachers and administrators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven students, three administrators, a former guidance counselor and a parent spoke against Agan. Six of the students told the panel that Agan made them uncomfortable by touching them or commenting on their clothing, including calling one girl “short shorts.” Four of them, including Steed, said they did not feel comfortable going to Agan for extra help with math because they did not want to be alone with him. Several also said they refrained from speaking in class to avoid attracting his attention.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Four former students, three teachers and a staff member spoke on Agan’s behalf. The former students described Agan as a supportive mentor and caring teacher and said they felt at home in his classroom. All four students said he squeezed, rubbed or touched their shoulders, but that his actions did not make them uncomfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those students told KQED and\u003cem> ProPublica\u003c/em> that her opinion about the teacher’s behavior has changed in recent years. She said she had considered his physical contact normal while in high school. But her perspective shifted as she got older, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went to college and talked to people and realized it wasn’t normal,” said the former student, now in her 20s. “Looking back at it, I would have jumped to the other side, to be quite honest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the hearing, Agan testified that he would have stopped touching students’ shoulders if he had been clearly warned, according to a summary included in the panel’s decision. He said he became comfortable with his leadership students, and his actions carried over to math students even though he wasn’t as close with them. He denied massaging students’ shoulders and said students misinterpreted “squeezes or shakes” as massages. He said he did not intend to make students feel uncomfortable and regretted that some students did not feel safe in his class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the administrators, former director of human resources Mike Minahen, told the panel that the details students shared with him during his investigation “weighed heavy” on him. He said it was unusual for high school students to “break the code” and come forward to make a complaint about a teacher, “especially a leadership teacher who has influence over student activities throughout the entire school.” Minahen, who has retired, declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November 2019, the panel unanimously decided Agan should lose his job. Even the teacher chosen by Agan agreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The likelihood of recurrence is high,” the panel wrote in its decision. “Over time, he has shown that he cannot or will not exercise good judgment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the panelists told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that she voted to terminate Agan’s employment in part because his alleged behavior continued even after administrators issued warnings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His actions were making students, particularly young women, want to not take advanced math classes. They didn’t want to be touched,” said the panelist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize her job in education. “All that directly impacts their access to good colleges because he was a calculus teacher.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2019, school district officials sent documentation of Agan’s firing, along with details of their investigation, to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, California’s educator licensing agency, as state law requires for public school teachers who resign or are fired for misconduct. The educator licensing agency would decide whether Agan would be disciplined further, such as receiving a public warning, facing a suspension or losing his license to teach in a California public school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disciplinary process typically takes one year, according to the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would take the state licensing board nearly 500 days to decide what to do in Agan’s case.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How Agan returned to the classroom\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As the state considered the matter, Agan applied for a job at a Sacramento middle school about an hour away from Rodriguez High in May 2020. It was a time of heightened teacher shortages, especially in subjects like math, during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan provided stellar letters of recommendation from former teaching colleagues in his application, which school representatives provided to KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> in response to a public records request.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any school searching Agan’s name on California’s credentialing database would have seen a clean record and valid credentials indicating he was legally fit to teach. That’s because while the state licensing agency knew Agan had been fired for what the district described as sexually harassing students, California law prevented the agency from disclosing information about the case. Nowhere \u003ca href=\"https://educator.ctc.ca.gov/siebel/app/esales/enu?SWECmd=GotoView&SWEView=CTC+Person+Adverse+Action+Public+View+Web&SWERF=1&SWEHo=&SWEBU=1&SWEApplet0=CTC+Public+Person+Detail+Form+Applet+Web&SWERowId0=1-27L-88&SWEApplet1=CTC+Adverse+Action+Applet+Web&SWERowId1=2-499IB5\">in the online public records\u003c/a> did it say that Agan remained under investigation by the agency — let alone any details of his employment record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his application for the middle school job, Agan acknowledged that he had been fired after being “accused of inappropriately touching students on the shoulders during class.” He wrote that he disagreed with the dismissal and explained that he would often place his hands on students’ shoulders while helping them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Math is a difficult subject for many and my actions were meant as a means of encouragement; a way to say, ‘It’s OK that you’re having trouble, keep trying,’” Agan wrote, adding that he recognized his actions “made some students feel uncomfortable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan started teaching at Ephraim Williams College Prep Middle School that fall. The 175-person school is part of the Fortune network of charter schools. Administrators at Ephraim Williams at the time of Agan’s hiring did not respond to questions about how the school vetted him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082857 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-20.jpg\" alt=\"A school building with a sign in front of it that shows a photograph of a student and text that reads, “Enroll Today! 6-8 grades.”\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-20.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-20-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-20-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ephraim Williams College Prep Middle School, a charter school in Sacramento. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Former Fortune human resources consultant Rick Rubino, who helped the middle school recruit, interview and hire candidates at the time Agan was applying, said the school was not aware that Agan’s former employer concluded that he had sexually harassed multiple students. “Do you think any reasonable school district or principal would hire that person?” Rubino said. “No. So clearly, Fortune School did not get that information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rubino said he “would guarantee that somebody at Fortune called the principal at the school where Jason Agan was teaching in Fairfield and got a good report.” He said he does not remember making that call himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The former principal at Rodriguez High did not respond to questions about a reference check. But a Fortune School spokesperson, Tiffany Moffatt, said school officials follow “all state guidelines and regulations and conduct thorough vetting, making decisions based on the information available to us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t until near the end of Agan’s first school year at Ephraim Williams that the state licensing agency issued its decision regarding his actions at his first school. In May 2021, the state suspended Agan’s license for seven days; two of those days fell on a weekend. The sanction — along with a red flag icon — appeared in the state’s public database of credentialed educators. This would be the only visible clue schools would have of anything amiss in Agan’s work history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corey, the former superintendent of Fairfield-Suisun Unified, told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that she was “flabbergasted” that he had only been suspended for seven days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a real mismatch of what happened,” Corey said. “What a disservice it was to those girls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steed, one of Agan’s accusers, said students had done the right thing and shared their concerns about Agan with their school, only for adults at the state level to give him the opportunity to teach elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s even the point of going through this whole process?” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A middle school student details unwanted touching\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In September 2021, a month after Fortune students returned to in-person learning, an eighth grader at Agan’s second school complained about his conduct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The student told her doctor during a routine physical that Agan had touched her lower back, according to a summary of the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The girl’s mother told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that she reported the incident to the principal, who connected mother and daughter with Rubino, Fortune’s human resources consultant. The mother told Rubino that Agan was giving her daughter a disproportionate amount of attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The girl, who is now 17, spoke to KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> on the condition that only her middle name, Sherelle, be used because she is a minor. Leslie, the student’s mother, is also being identified by her middle name to protect her daughter’s identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082856\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082856 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-AnonymousPhotos-09.jpg\" alt=\"A 17-year-old girl and a woman stand outside with their backs to the camera. The woman rests her hand on the girl’s back in an embrace.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-AnonymousPhotos-09.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-AnonymousPhotos-09-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260318-ProPublica-AnonymousPhotos-09-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sherelle, left, and her mother, Leslie, at their home. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In that same meeting, Sherelle told Rubino that Agan removed his hand from her lower back after she asked him to stop, and he returned to the front of the classroom. But he came back moments later and placed his hand on her shoulder, according to a letter of warning Rubino wrote to Agan after interviewing the girl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt disrespected. I felt uncomfortable. I felt mad,” Sherelle told the news outlets about the incident. “I felt like even speaking up didn’t matter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his letter, Rubino directed Agan to stop touching students and “dial back” his praise for the girl. Rubino also cautioned that failure to comply could result in further disciplinary action, up to suspension or termination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agan denied the allegations in a written response to Rubino obtained by KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em>. “I would like to be on record that I dispute it being listed as a ‘fact’ that I touched [the student] on the lower back,” Agan wrote. “I have been extremely diligent in avoiding personal contact with scholars due to my previous experience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leslie had texted Rubino expressing concern about how Agan was vetted for the job after she said she saw online posts by students at his former school alleging that he had touched them inappropriately.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Actually, I was the one who investigated the matter in the Fairfield Suisun School District when Mr. Agan was a candidate,” Rubino texted back that same day in messages reviewed by KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em>. “I also checked social media and Google to see if I could find any information about the incident in Fairfield, but I did not find anything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rubino did not answer subsequent questions about the details of his investigation or how much he knew about Agan’s conduct at the teacher’s previous school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the state licensing agency recommends that educators be disciplined, California law allows it to release its findings, which include a summary of the case, to current supervisors and prospective employers who request it within five years. Fortune appears never to have asked for such findings, according to the logs of these requests between 2020 and 2024 provided by the agency to KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em>. A Fortune spokesperson did not say why the charter school did not ask for the information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leslie said her daughter’s experience at Ephraim Williams only worsened after she reported Agan. Math has always been Sherelle’s favorite subject. But as the school year went on, her grades in Agan’s class plummeted. She needed help but said Agan ignored her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With just weeks left in the school year, Leslie pulled her daughter out of Ephraim Williams to finish eighth grade at another school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She only learned about Agan’s disciplinary history when KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> contacted her in January. “The whole education system would rather protect him,” Leslie said. “You let him loose on all these kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fitzhugh, spokesperson for the teacher licensing agency, said the commission is “committed to keeping all students and schools safe,” but is bound by the law in how it disciplines teachers. “The Commission stands ready to implement any additional public protections that the Legislature authorizes,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting the following year, in 2022, records show that Fortune offered Agan a role supporting new teachers rather than assigning him his own classroom. Fortune administrators did not respond to questions about why he was offered the position, which he declined because he had received another job offer in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thank you for the last two years,” Agan wrote, resigning from the school. “It has meant more to me than you could ever know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082861\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082861 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260417-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-02.jpg\" alt=\"A school building with a sign in front of it that reads, “Clifford School”\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260417-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260417-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260417-ProPublica-CATeacherDiscipline-02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clifford School, a prekindergarten through eighth grade public school in Redwood City, California. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By August 2022, Agan would begin teaching at Clifford School, which serves students in pre-K through eighth grade in Redwood City. He received tenure in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wendy Kelly, deputy superintendent at the Redwood City School District, declined to answer questions about Agan’s hiring or say whether the school district was aware he had been accused of misconduct at two previous schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> that the district, when hiring, typically calls candidates’ immediate supervisors and checks the database of licensed educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said school districts rely on decisions by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to “put the best people in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was pleased to see that the suspension was only seven days,” Kelly said of Agan’s discipline. “I have to trust that when the CTC reinstates the teacher, that the issue has been either resolved, learned from, there’s been consequences in place, which is why they’re employable to the next organization.\u003cem>” \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>***\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How we reported this story\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>KQED and\u003cem> ProPublica\u003c/em> obtained detailed teacher disciplinary records from school districts after filing public records requests with the 300 largest districts in California. We asked for records of sexual misconduct complaints from 2019 through 2025, including any reports to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. More than 150 districts provided records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the district determined that an educator had committed misconduct that it characterized as sexual, including sexual harassment by unwanted touching, sending sexual electronic messages and making sexual remarks, we checked the state licensing database to see whether the state had revoked the teacher’s license or imposed other discipline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>***\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Help us report on teacher misconduct in California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you have experience with the state’s opaque teacher disciplinary process, KQED and \u003cem>ProPublica\u003c/em> want to hear from you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can fill out a brief form or contact KQED reporter Holly McDede on Signal at hollymcdede.68 or via email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hmcdede@kqed.org\">hmcdede@kqed.org\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://airtable.com/app0AkyDo9b8r1mFR/pagLr7CSAR8lvPhQz/form\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cbr>\nShare Your Experience\u003cbr>\n\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>***\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was reported with support from the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley Journalism and the Fund for Investigative Journalism, with reporting contributions from Luiz H. Monticelli.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://california-newsroom.beehiiv.com/\">The California Newsroom\u003c/a> is a statewide public media collaboration that includes NPR, CalMatters, KQED in San Francisco, LAist and KCRW in Los Angeles, KPBS in San Diego and other partner stations across California.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/world-cup\">Bay Area soccer fans\u003c/a> have come to accept a tough truth: superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lamine Yamal or James Rodríguez will \u003cem>not\u003c/em> be coming to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara for the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the lack of big names aside, the Bay Area will nonetheless be hosting six games as part of the tournament that stretches across North America starting June 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For two weeks in June, eight national teams — Qatar, Switzerland, Austria, Jordan, Türkiye, Paraguay, Algeria and Australia — are scheduled to play at Levi’s Stadium for World Cup group stage matches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#WhichWorldCupgamesareintheBayArea\"> Which World Cup games are in the Bay Area?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Then, on July 1, the Bay Area will host one match from the knockout stage of the competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which teams play will be decided later based on results from the group stage, but a glance at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/articles/knockout-stage-match-schedule-bracket\">tournament rules\u003c/a> shows there’s a \u003cem>very small\u003c/em> possibility that this game could see the United States face off against a powerhouse team like France, the Netherlands or Argentina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076519\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076519\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2259411504.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1321\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2259411504.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2259411504-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2259411504-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An Adidas FIFA World Cup soccer ball is seen on a FIFA x NFL chair in the Media Center ahead of Super Bowl LX on Feb. 4, 2026, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Matthew Huang via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s right: in the unlikely scenario that his team places third in the group phase, Lionel Messi could play a game in Santa Clara. It’s the World Cup — anything \u003ca href=\"https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/world-cup-defeat-national-trauma\">can happen\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A silver lining for the Bay Area lineup’s relative lack of star power: While other World Cup host venues have already sold out — with resale tickets for the game between Colombia and Portugal in Miami Gardens \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/sports/soccer/colombia-portugal-world-cup-6c1f318b\">surpassing\u003c/a> Super Bowl prices — there \u003cem>are \u003c/em>still seats available for the matches at Levi’s Stadium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you don’t want to splurge, there are many ways to enjoy the matches remotely.[aside postID=news_12080384 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/20250516_ValkyriesHomeOpener_GC-48_qed-1020x716.jpg'](Perhaps even with a dance party after the game, since FIFA has once again \u003ca href=\"https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/48710188/shakira-unveils-teaser-official-world-cup-anthem-burna-boy\">chosen\u003c/a> musical icon Shakira to sing the competition’s official theme song, featuring Nigerian singer Burna Boy.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading to learn which World Cup matches are being played in the Bay Area, where you can watch these games surrounded by fans for free and how you can still find World Cup tickets for Levi’s Stadium next month if you’re willing to part with the cash.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When does the World Cup start?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The World Cup kicks off in Mexico City on June 11. Then, over the following five weeks, more than 100 games will be played in the major metropolitan areas of the U.S., Mexico and Canada for the following five weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"WhichWorldCupgamesareintheBayArea\">\u003c/a>Which World Cup games will be played at Levi’s Stadium?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The initial phase of the tournament is known as the group stage, where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/teams\">48 participating nations\u003c/a> are divided into groups of four. Each team will play one game against the other three members of its group, and the results of these matches determine who passes to the knockout stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the first two weeks of the tournament, Levi’s Stadium will host the following games from groups B, D and J:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group B: Qatar vs. Switzerland\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saturday, June 13 at 12 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group J: Austria vs. Jordan\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday, June 16 at 9 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group D: Türkiye vs. Paraguay\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Friday, June 19 at 8 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group J: Jordan vs. Algeria\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monday, June 22 at 8 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group D: Paraguay vs. Australia\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thursday, June 25 at 7 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once all teams have played against their fellow group members, the top two performers from each group — along with eight additional third-place teams — advance to the knockout stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083161\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083161\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2250193143.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2250193143.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2250193143-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2250193143-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The screen displays the final draw during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Dec. 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Jess Rapfogel/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Levi’s Stadium will host one knockout match:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Top-scoring team from Group D vs. the third-best team from either Group B, E, F, I or J\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wednesday, July 1 at 5 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The World Cup final will be played on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How can I watch a World Cup game in the Bay Area?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buy World Cup ticket to watch in person\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want to watch one of the matches at Levi’s Stadium in person, you can still buy tickets either on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/tickets\">official FIFA portal\u003c/a> (which includes a resale marketplace) or on a verified resale website like \u003ca href=\"https://www.ticketmaster.com/soccer\">Ticketmaster\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://www.stubhub.com/world-cup-tickets/grouping/45410\">StubHub\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of this story’s publishing, prices range from several hundred dollars for nosebleed seats in the upper sideline sections to thousands of dollars for a \u003ca href=\"https://fifaworldcup26.hospitality.fifa.com/\">VIP hospitality experience\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Watch the World Cup remotely at fan events\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Don’t want to buy a ticket but still want to feel like you’re close to the action? The Bay Area Host Committee — a nonprofit established by the region’s professional sports teams — has organized \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfbayareafwc26.com/bay-area-events\">“Fan Zones” in multiple cities\u003c/a>, including San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond and Redwood City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to organizers, Fan Zones are free community watch parties that will feature live matches on giant screens, along with local food vendors. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfbayareafwc26.com/bay-area-events\">\u003cstrong>Find the Fan Zone closest to you.\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044957\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12044957\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/SJEarthquakesGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/SJEarthquakesGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/SJEarthquakesGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/SJEarthquakesGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nick Lima #24 of San José Earthquakes with the ball tackled by Jayden Reid #99 of St. Louis City SC during the second half of an MLS game between St. Louis City SC and San José Earthquakes at Energizer Park on May 31, 2025, in St Louis, Missouri. \u003ccite>(Bill Barrett/ISI Photos/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The San José Earthquakes — the Bay Area’s very own Major League Soccer team — will also be hosting family-friendly watch parties for \u003ca href=\"http://sjearthquakes.com/soccercelebration\">all 104 games\u003c/a> in the tournament at San Pedro Square in downtown San José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you want to feel \u003cem>even \u003c/em>closer to the players, the Hilton Santa Clara is organizing “The End Zone” — the closest thing fans will see to a tailgate (since informal tailgates are not allowed at Levi’s Stadium) at its parking lot a block down from the stadium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The End Zone will host fans of all ages during \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/world-cup-takeover-the-endzone-tickets-1986365934983?\">all Bay Area games\u003c/a> and will include live DJs and food available for purchase.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stream World Cup games at home\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want to watch the game at home with family and friends, World Cup games will be aired live on NBC, Telemundo and Peacock streaming.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How did the Bay Area get these World Cup match-ups?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nobody knew which teams would play in Santa Clara till the World Cup Draw \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/7338971/world-cup-draw-fifa-2026/\">last December\u003c/a>. FIFA officials, along with the leaders of the three host nations, gathered in Washington, D.C. to assign each participating country to one of the 12 initial groups — through a blind draw in front of the media and a live audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the draw, organizers had already decided that Levi’s Stadium would host matches from groups B, D and J.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083158\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083158\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2249849133.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2249849133.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2249849133-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2249849133-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The FIFA World Cup Trophy is seen on stage at the Kennedy Center ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw on Dec. 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Michael Regan via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Once the makeup of each group was confirmed, Bay Area fans then learned which teams would get to play in the home of the 49ers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And don’t expect FIFA officials to grant the Bay Area more games or change which teams will play in Santa Clara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tournament’s governing body has stayed firm with its current schedule — even despite \u003ca href=\"https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/116216801278101254\">recent statements\u003c/a> by President Donald Trump discouraging the Iranian soccer team from competing as the war between the U.S. and Iran continues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/world-cup\">Bay Area soccer fans\u003c/a> have come to accept a tough truth: superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lamine Yamal or James Rodríguez will \u003cem>not\u003c/em> be coming to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara for the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the lack of big names aside, the Bay Area will nonetheless be hosting six games as part of the tournament that stretches across North America starting June 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For two weeks in June, eight national teams — Qatar, Switzerland, Austria, Jordan, Türkiye, Paraguay, Algeria and Australia — are scheduled to play at Levi’s Stadium for World Cup group stage matches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#WhichWorldCupgamesareintheBayArea\"> Which World Cup games are in the Bay Area?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Then, on July 1, the Bay Area will host one match from the knockout stage of the competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which teams play will be decided later based on results from the group stage, but a glance at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/articles/knockout-stage-match-schedule-bracket\">tournament rules\u003c/a> shows there’s a \u003cem>very small\u003c/em> possibility that this game could see the United States face off against a powerhouse team like France, the Netherlands or Argentina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076519\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076519\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2259411504.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1321\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2259411504.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2259411504-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2259411504-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An Adidas FIFA World Cup soccer ball is seen on a FIFA x NFL chair in the Media Center ahead of Super Bowl LX on Feb. 4, 2026, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Matthew Huang via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s right: in the unlikely scenario that his team places third in the group phase, Lionel Messi could play a game in Santa Clara. It’s the World Cup — anything \u003ca href=\"https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/world-cup-defeat-national-trauma\">can happen\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A silver lining for the Bay Area lineup’s relative lack of star power: While other World Cup host venues have already sold out — with resale tickets for the game between Colombia and Portugal in Miami Gardens \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/sports/soccer/colombia-portugal-world-cup-6c1f318b\">surpassing\u003c/a> Super Bowl prices — there \u003cem>are \u003c/em>still seats available for the matches at Levi’s Stadium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you don’t want to splurge, there are many ways to enjoy the matches remotely.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>(Perhaps even with a dance party after the game, since FIFA has once again \u003ca href=\"https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/48710188/shakira-unveils-teaser-official-world-cup-anthem-burna-boy\">chosen\u003c/a> musical icon Shakira to sing the competition’s official theme song, featuring Nigerian singer Burna Boy.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading to learn which World Cup matches are being played in the Bay Area, where you can watch these games surrounded by fans for free and how you can still find World Cup tickets for Levi’s Stadium next month if you’re willing to part with the cash.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When does the World Cup start?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The World Cup kicks off in Mexico City on June 11. Then, over the following five weeks, more than 100 games will be played in the major metropolitan areas of the U.S., Mexico and Canada for the following five weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"WhichWorldCupgamesareintheBayArea\">\u003c/a>Which World Cup games will be played at Levi’s Stadium?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The initial phase of the tournament is known as the group stage, where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/teams\">48 participating nations\u003c/a> are divided into groups of four. Each team will play one game against the other three members of its group, and the results of these matches determine who passes to the knockout stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the first two weeks of the tournament, Levi’s Stadium will host the following games from groups B, D and J:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group B: Qatar vs. Switzerland\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saturday, June 13 at 12 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group J: Austria vs. Jordan\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday, June 16 at 9 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group D: Türkiye vs. Paraguay\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Friday, June 19 at 8 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group J: Jordan vs. Algeria\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monday, June 22 at 8 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Group D: Paraguay vs. Australia\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thursday, June 25 at 7 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once all teams have played against their fellow group members, the top two performers from each group — along with eight additional third-place teams — advance to the knockout stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083161\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083161\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2250193143.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2250193143.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2250193143-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2250193143-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The screen displays the final draw during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Dec. 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Jess Rapfogel/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Levi’s Stadium will host one knockout match:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Top-scoring team from Group D vs. the third-best team from either Group B, E, F, I or J\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wednesday, July 1 at 5 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The World Cup final will be played on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How can I watch a World Cup game in the Bay Area?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buy World Cup ticket to watch in person\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want to watch one of the matches at Levi’s Stadium in person, you can still buy tickets either on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/tickets\">official FIFA portal\u003c/a> (which includes a resale marketplace) or on a verified resale website like \u003ca href=\"https://www.ticketmaster.com/soccer\">Ticketmaster\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://www.stubhub.com/world-cup-tickets/grouping/45410\">StubHub\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of this story’s publishing, prices range from several hundred dollars for nosebleed seats in the upper sideline sections to thousands of dollars for a \u003ca href=\"https://fifaworldcup26.hospitality.fifa.com/\">VIP hospitality experience\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Watch the World Cup remotely at fan events\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Don’t want to buy a ticket but still want to feel like you’re close to the action? The Bay Area Host Committee — a nonprofit established by the region’s professional sports teams — has organized \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfbayareafwc26.com/bay-area-events\">“Fan Zones” in multiple cities\u003c/a>, including San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond and Redwood City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to organizers, Fan Zones are free community watch parties that will feature live matches on giant screens, along with local food vendors. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfbayareafwc26.com/bay-area-events\">\u003cstrong>Find the Fan Zone closest to you.\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044957\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12044957\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/SJEarthquakesGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/SJEarthquakesGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/SJEarthquakesGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/SJEarthquakesGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nick Lima #24 of San José Earthquakes with the ball tackled by Jayden Reid #99 of St. Louis City SC during the second half of an MLS game between St. Louis City SC and San José Earthquakes at Energizer Park on May 31, 2025, in St Louis, Missouri. \u003ccite>(Bill Barrett/ISI Photos/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The San José Earthquakes — the Bay Area’s very own Major League Soccer team — will also be hosting family-friendly watch parties for \u003ca href=\"http://sjearthquakes.com/soccercelebration\">all 104 games\u003c/a> in the tournament at San Pedro Square in downtown San José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you want to feel \u003cem>even \u003c/em>closer to the players, the Hilton Santa Clara is organizing “The End Zone” — the closest thing fans will see to a tailgate (since informal tailgates are not allowed at Levi’s Stadium) at its parking lot a block down from the stadium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The End Zone will host fans of all ages during \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/world-cup-takeover-the-endzone-tickets-1986365934983?\">all Bay Area games\u003c/a> and will include live DJs and food available for purchase.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stream World Cup games at home\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want to watch the game at home with family and friends, World Cup games will be aired live on NBC, Telemundo and Peacock streaming.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How did the Bay Area get these World Cup match-ups?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nobody knew which teams would play in Santa Clara till the World Cup Draw \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/7338971/world-cup-draw-fifa-2026/\">last December\u003c/a>. FIFA officials, along with the leaders of the three host nations, gathered in Washington, D.C. to assign each participating country to one of the 12 initial groups — through a blind draw in front of the media and a live audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the draw, organizers had already decided that Levi’s Stadium would host matches from groups B, D and J.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083158\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083158\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2249849133.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2249849133.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2249849133-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GettyImages-2249849133-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The FIFA World Cup Trophy is seen on stage at the Kennedy Center ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw on Dec. 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Michael Regan via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Once the makeup of each group was confirmed, Bay Area fans then learned which teams would get to play in the home of the 49ers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And don’t expect FIFA officials to grant the Bay Area more games or change which teams will play in Santa Clara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tournament’s governing body has stayed firm with its current schedule — even despite \u003ca href=\"https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/116216801278101254\">recent statements\u003c/a> by President Donald Trump discouraging the Iranian soccer team from competing as the war between the U.S. and Iran continues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "former-openai-exec-calls-decision-to-remove-sam-altman-a-hail-mary-during-musk-trial",
"title": "Former OpenAI Exec Calls Decision to Remove Sam Altman a ‘Hail Mary’ During Musk Trial",
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"headTitle": "Former OpenAI Exec Calls Decision to Remove Sam Altman a ‘Hail Mary’ During Musk Trial | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Microsoft’s CEO and another major player took the stand on Monday in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland\">Oakland\u003c/a>, testifying in the blockbuster trial between OpenAI co-founders Elon Musk and Sam Altman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahead of Altman’s testimony, Musk’s attorney Steven Molo questioned Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Ilya Sutskever, a top OpenAI computer scientist who departed the company in 2024. Sutskever discussed his role in orchestrating Altman’s brief ouster in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over five days in November 2023, Altman was removed and reinstated from his post, after a coalition of board members raised concerns that he had not been “consistently candid in his communications” and cited a breakdown of trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether Altman and other executives have maintained OpenAI’s initial stated mission — to develop AI safely and for the “benefit of humanity” — is critical to Musk’s suit, which claims that leaders breached their duty to its nonprofit mission by building a for-profit company on top of it. Musk also alleged that the company unfairly benefited at his expense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk also alleges that Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s largest financial backer and until this week held the exclusive rights to license and sell its technology, aided and abetted that breach of trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molo questioned Nadella about Microsoft’s motive to invest in OpenAI — a $13 billion input that Nadella said is expected to see a return of about $92 billion, “if it works out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081686\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12081686 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve Molo, Elon Musk’s attorney, presents opening statements in the trial in which Elon Musk (center-right) claims that Sam Altman (right) and OpenAI abandoned their founding promise to develop AI for the benefit of humanity, rather than solely for profit, in Oakland, on April 28, 2026. \u003ccite>(Vicki Behringer for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Musk’s attorney pointed out Nadella’s fiduciary duty to maximize profit, and referenced a series of texts between him and Altman that appeared to show Nadella pushing for an earlier rollout of the paid version of ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When chatGPT paid?” Nadella wrote in the message.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Altman said that there was “Not enough compute to make it a good consumer experience,” to which Nadella said, “The sooner the better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadella said that the reason Microsoft invested was that OpenAI was pursuing a for-profit model, but he said, “If the pie became larger, the nonprofit would benefit as well.”[aside postID=news_12081916 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/AP26118555622828-2000x1333.jpg']Molo asked Nadella if he was aware that, for a period of time, OpenAI’s nonprofit did not have any employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am not,” Nadella said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molo also questioned Nadella about Microsoft’s role during Altman’s brief ouster. At the time, Nadella announced that he would hire Altman, along with OpenAI’s third co-founder and current president, Greg Brockman, as well as other allies, to head up a new AI team at Microsoft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadella said that he “had ideas about how Sam [Altman] and the other employees could join Microsoft if they were not reinstated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If people were going to leave OpenAI, I wanted them to come to Microsoft,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molo asked Nadella if he knew why Altman had been removed, to which Nadella said he was never given an “explicit answer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Did the thought occur to you … the board might issue a public statement about why they fired Altman?” Molo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadella said during that period — referred to as “The Blip” by many OpenAI employees — he was focused on ensuring continuity for customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It goes back to me wanting to communicate to customers that they can count on us,” he said. “Come Monday, that doesn’t just disappear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082325\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082325 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">OpenAI CEO Sam Altman watches as OpenAI President Greg Brockman testifies in the trial in which Elon Musk claims that Altman and OpenAI abandoned their founding promise to develop AI for the benefit of humanity, rather than solely for profit, in Oakland, on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Vicki Behringer for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sutskever, who took the stand after Nadella, described Altman’s removal differently. He said it was a “Hail Mary” to save OpenAI, which had become an environment that was “not conducive” to the technology’s safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt a great deal of ownership of OpenAI,” he said. “I felt like I created this company. I simply cared for it, and I didn’t want it to be destroyed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sutskever, who helped lead the ouster, had compiled a more than 50-page record of Altman’s “consistent pattern of lying,” including misrepresenting facts, safety protocols and company information to the board and executives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sutskever maintained that he had worked on a team that aimed to focus on long-term risks as more powerful AI was built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal of the super alignment is to do the research in advance, such that humanity will have the technological means to make it controlled and safe,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team was disbanded days after he departed the company, in May 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Microsoft’s CEO and another major player took the stand on Monday in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland\">Oakland\u003c/a>, testifying in the blockbuster trial between OpenAI co-founders Elon Musk and Sam Altman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahead of Altman’s testimony, Musk’s attorney Steven Molo questioned Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Ilya Sutskever, a top OpenAI computer scientist who departed the company in 2024. Sutskever discussed his role in orchestrating Altman’s brief ouster in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over five days in November 2023, Altman was removed and reinstated from his post, after a coalition of board members raised concerns that he had not been “consistently candid in his communications” and cited a breakdown of trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether Altman and other executives have maintained OpenAI’s initial stated mission — to develop AI safely and for the “benefit of humanity” — is critical to Musk’s suit, which claims that leaders breached their duty to its nonprofit mission by building a for-profit company on top of it. Musk also alleged that the company unfairly benefited at his expense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk also alleges that Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s largest financial backer and until this week held the exclusive rights to license and sell its technology, aided and abetted that breach of trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molo questioned Nadella about Microsoft’s motive to invest in OpenAI — a $13 billion input that Nadella said is expected to see a return of about $92 billion, “if it works out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081686\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12081686 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260428-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-04-KQED-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve Molo, Elon Musk’s attorney, presents opening statements in the trial in which Elon Musk (center-right) claims that Sam Altman (right) and OpenAI abandoned their founding promise to develop AI for the benefit of humanity, rather than solely for profit, in Oakland, on April 28, 2026. \u003ccite>(Vicki Behringer for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Musk’s attorney pointed out Nadella’s fiduciary duty to maximize profit, and referenced a series of texts between him and Altman that appeared to show Nadella pushing for an earlier rollout of the paid version of ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When chatGPT paid?” Nadella wrote in the message.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Altman said that there was “Not enough compute to make it a good consumer experience,” to which Nadella said, “The sooner the better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadella said that the reason Microsoft invested was that OpenAI was pursuing a for-profit model, but he said, “If the pie became larger, the nonprofit would benefit as well.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Molo asked Nadella if he was aware that, for a period of time, OpenAI’s nonprofit did not have any employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am not,” Nadella said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molo also questioned Nadella about Microsoft’s role during Altman’s brief ouster. At the time, Nadella announced that he would hire Altman, along with OpenAI’s third co-founder and current president, Greg Brockman, as well as other allies, to head up a new AI team at Microsoft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadella said that he “had ideas about how Sam [Altman] and the other employees could join Microsoft if they were not reinstated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If people were going to leave OpenAI, I wanted them to come to Microsoft,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molo asked Nadella if he knew why Altman had been removed, to which Nadella said he was never given an “explicit answer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Did the thought occur to you … the board might issue a public statement about why they fired Altman?” Molo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadella said during that period — referred to as “The Blip” by many OpenAI employees — he was focused on ensuring continuity for customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It goes back to me wanting to communicate to customers that they can count on us,” he said. “Come Monday, that doesn’t just disappear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082325\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082325 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260504-MUSK-ALTMAN-VB-03-KQED-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">OpenAI CEO Sam Altman watches as OpenAI President Greg Brockman testifies in the trial in which Elon Musk claims that Altman and OpenAI abandoned their founding promise to develop AI for the benefit of humanity, rather than solely for profit, in Oakland, on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Vicki Behringer for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sutskever, who took the stand after Nadella, described Altman’s removal differently. He said it was a “Hail Mary” to save OpenAI, which had become an environment that was “not conducive” to the technology’s safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt a great deal of ownership of OpenAI,” he said. “I felt like I created this company. I simply cared for it, and I didn’t want it to be destroyed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sutskever, who helped lead the ouster, had compiled a more than 50-page record of Altman’s “consistent pattern of lying,” including misrepresenting facts, safety protocols and company information to the board and executives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sutskever maintained that he had worked on a team that aimed to focus on long-term risks as more powerful AI was built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal of the super alignment is to do the research in advance, such that humanity will have the technological means to make it controlled and safe,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team was disbanded days after he departed the company, in May 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "heres-how-the-candidates-for-governor-would-make-california-more-affordable",
"title": "Here’s How the Candidates for Governor Would Make California More Affordable",
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"headTitle": "Here’s How the Candidates for Governor Would Make California More Affordable | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cem>How We Get By\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cem>full series here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s next governor will inherit an affordability crisis that defies easy fixes: housing costs that have outpaced incomes for years, electricity rates among the highest in the nation, and gas prices nearly $2 above the national average — all in a state whose economy remains the envy of the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12074132/xavier-becerra-on-why-his-upbringing-and-career-give-him-an-edge-over-other-gubernatorial-candidates\">Xavier Becerra\u003c/a>, the former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary and a Democratic candidate for governor, rattled off some of the biggest cost pressures as he spoke to more than 300 people in a high school gym in Concord last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The cost of affording a home, your health care, groceries, gasoline,” he said. “That cost of living crisis that we face here — it becomes existential.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The price of housing and energy has been unaffordable for Californians long before a post-pandemic surge in inflation made the cost of living the top concern for voters across America — and a potent political cudgel for politicians from President Donald Trump to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s no surprise that, in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082125/inside-californias-billionaire-tax-fight-and-the-wide-open-governors-race\">most competitive primary\u003c/a> for California governor in a generation, candidates from both parties are making affordability central to their campaigns, vowing to ease a cost crunch fueled in part by the state’s top-heavy economy, strict land-use policies and complicated transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is often leading the nation — most of the time, that’s for good,” said Neale Mahoney, director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. “But on some of these issues, we’ve been the canary in the coal mine for some of the problems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082334\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082334 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260423_-XAVIERBECERRA_EG_004-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260423_-XAVIERBECERRA_EG_004-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260423_-XAVIERBECERRA_EG_004-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260423_-XAVIERBECERRA_EG_004-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Murphy, center-left, and friend Kimberley J. Rodler, hold handmade signs in support of Xavier Becerra’s gubernatorial bid during a campaign event at Mount Diablo High School in Concord on Thursday, April 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The challenge: affordability has come to encompass such a wide range of cost pressures that the next governor could struggle to even define success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While leading candidates in both parties agree that housing costs are the greatest strain on residents’ budgets, other affordability proposals run the gamut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the Democrats, Becerra is vowing to freeze utility rates and home insurance premiums; investor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075769/tom-steyer-lays-out-vision-for-a-more-affordable-california-in-run-for-governor\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a> wants to return windfall oil profits to residents; San José Mayor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075490/san-jose-mayor-matt-mahan-positions-himself-as-a-change-candidate-in-governors-race\">Matt Mahan\u003c/a> would pause the gas tax, and former congressmember \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078450/katie-porters-run-for-governor-centers-tax-cuts-corporate-accountability\">Katie Porter\u003c/a> is promising free child care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the Republican side, former Fox News commentator \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12071133/former-fox-news-host-steve-hilton-lays-out-vision-for-california-governorship\">Steve Hilton\u003c/a> wants to cut taxes and car registration fees, while Riverside County Sheriff \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081096/riverside-county-sheriff-chad-bianco-on-his-faith-cutting-taxes-and-ballot-seizure\">Chad Bianco\u003c/a> vows to bring down gas prices by encouraging oil production in the state.[aside label=\"From the 2026 Voter Guide\" link1='https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/governor,Learn about the California Governor Election' hero=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2026/04/Aside-California-Governor-2026-Primary-Election-1200x1200@2x.png]The specifics may differ, but the political upside of running a campaign focused on affordability is undeniable. Trump hammered former Vice President Kamala Harris over inflation on his way to victory in 2024. The following year, Mamdani made the cost of rent and transit a centerpiece of his successful campaign for mayor — while fellow Democrats won governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia on affordability platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the California governor’s race, candidates have leaned into their own personal histories as they attempt to connect with voters struggling with rising costs. Becerra has shared stories of his immigrant parents saving up to buy a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan has recounted his working-class upbringing in the farming town of Watsonville. Hilton has pointed to his humble beginnings as the son of Hungarian refugees in London, and Porter has openly discussed the struggle of raising a family in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m the single mom of three teenagers who believe they will not be able to buy houses here in California,” Porter said at a debate hosted by CBS in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voters like Luis Hernandez, who attended Becerra’s event in Concord, are looking for more than just campaign rhetoric. Hernandez is self-employed and buys health insurance through the Covered California exchange. He bemoaned rising premiums that are eating into his earnings and wants to know how the former attorney general plans to lower costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Home insurance, car insurance and the worst is health insurance,” Hernandez said. “Everything is going up, so it’s tough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traditional metrics for measuring affordability don’t neatly capture voter angst about cost pressures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082354\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082354\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260504_KATIEPORTERTOWNHALL_GC-11-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1307\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260504_KATIEPORTERTOWNHALL_GC-11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260504_KATIEPORTERTOWNHALL_GC-11-KQED-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260504_KATIEPORTERTOWNHALL_GC-11-KQED-1536x1004.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter (D) speaks during a town hall at KQED on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A longstanding gauge of purchasing power is real income, which measures pay after taking into account price increases. Real personal income \u003ca href=\"https://www.bea.gov/data/income-saving/real-personal-income-states\">increased by\u003c/a> 5.5% in California between 2023 and 2024 — the largest jump in the nation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. And real income for the median household in the state has \u003ca href=\"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSCAA672N\">risen to new highs\u003c/a> after a post-pandemic decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies \u003ca href=\"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8dj134w8\">survey\u003c/a> last month found a whopping 40% of likely voters picked “reducing the cost of living” as a top priority of California’s next governor. No other issue came close — and voters also prioritized specific cost-related solutions, such as building affordable housing (12%), lowering gas prices (10%), reducing health care costs (7%) and cutting utility rates (4%).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the macroeconomic statistics miss is that the most acute price pressures are on essential goods and services that are hardest for Californians to substitute, Mahoney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe the price of a flat screen TV has decreased, and that’s great,” Mahoney said. “But the price for health care, the price for housing … these are really essentials and price increases there hit in a really inescapable way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081062\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081062\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chad Bianco, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, speaks during a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. \u003ccite>(Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nowhere is that more evident than the cost of housing. The median home value in California is more than twice the national average, putting homeownership, long a key pathway to middle-class financial security, increasingly out of reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793\">new report\u003c/a> from the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office found that a mid-tier home in California (a house with a value in the 35th to 65th percentile) costs about $775,000. Since 2020, the income needed to qualify for a mortgage on a mid-tier home has increased far more quickly than median household income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While home prices have stabilized, housing has become less affordable for most Californians in recent years,” the report found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The leading contenders for governor share a focus on the supply side of the housing equation: finding ways to increase development and construction by streamlining or removing regulations and easing local zoning restrictions.[aside label=\"2026 California Voter Guide\" link1='https://www.kqed.org/voterguide,Learn everything you need to cast an informed ballot for the 2026 primary election' hero=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2026/04/Aside-California-Voter-Guide-2026-Primary-Election-1200x1200@2x.png]While Democrats Becerra, Porter and Steyer said they will focus their efforts on promoting denser housing near transit, Republicans Bianco and Hilton have argued for extending the growth of single-family neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do not have a land problem in California,” Bianco said in an April debate hosted by Nexstar. “We have a management problem, we have a government problem that we absolutely must take away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But affordability concerns in the state extend beyond the price of renting or buying a home, said Evan White, executive director of the California Policy Lab at the University of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On average, Californians pay about twice as much for housing as the average American, they pay 60% more for utilities than the average American, they pay 40% more for gas than the average American, they pay 11% more for groceries than the average American,” he said. “We’re the most expensive state by far.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of those cost pressures reflect California’s perilous position in the midst of a complicated transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Californians are being hit with the costs of damaging wildfires fueled by years of climate pollution, while the state’s carbon-intensive oil and gas industry faces an uncertain future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gas prices in the state currently average $6.16 a gallon, per AAA — the highest in the nation. The gap between California and the national average is due in part to the cost of state fuel blend requirements, environmental regulations and what UC Berkeley professor Severin Borenstein has \u003ca href=\"https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/whats-the-matter-with-californias-gasoline-prices/\">dubbed\u003c/a> the “mystery gasoline surcharge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bianco has proposed eliminating the state’s 61-cent-per-gallon gas tax, which funds road repair and transit. Hilton wants to reduce the gas tax and suspend the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which adds about eight to 10 cents per gallon. Steyer, by contrast, said he would seek to impose a cap on refinery profits and return any profits above the cap to residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there are electricity prices, which have increased dramatically in recent years — in large part due to investments made by investor-owned utilities to prevent future wildfires. The costs of those mitigation measures, such as undergrounding wires and trimming trees, were passed along to customers of PG&E, SoCal Edison and SDG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082331\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082331 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/043006TOMSTEYER_GH_007-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/043006TOMSTEYER_GH_007-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/043006TOMSTEYER_GH_007-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/043006TOMSTEYER_GH_007-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer speaks during a town hall event on April 30, 2026, in San José. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Steyer has proposed cutting the utilities’ guaranteed rate of return for capital projects and making it easier for cities and counties to form publicly owned power providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to have a different rule at the Public Utilities Commission about how they get paid,” Steyer told KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjXvKfldFlI&t=346s\">Political Breakdown\u003c/a>. “And we’re going to introduce local competition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hilton is also a supporter of locally-owned utilities. He is proposing to reclassify hydropower from large dams as “renewable energy,” which he argues will reduce what utilities need to spend on wind and solar power to meet the state’s climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the next governor has the ability to make progress on reducing these cost burdens, White cautioned that the challenges won’t be fixed overnight — or alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078808\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078808\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SteveHiltonAP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SteveHiltonAP.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SteveHiltonAP-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SteveHiltonAP-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve Hilton speaks during the California gubernatorial candidate debate on Feb. 3, 2026, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Laure Andrillon/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The governor could do a lot to improve not only housing costs, but utility costs and other high costs in the state,” he said. “But they do need to be able to work with the Legislature effectively to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even before polls close in the June 2 primary, many Californians struggling to afford life in the state have already voted with their feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>White \u003ca href=\"https://capolicylab.org/priced-out-relocation-amidst-californias-affordability-crisis/\">studied the migration trends\u003c/a> of California households over the past decade. Forty-two states send fewer people to California than they did 10 years ago. And families who decided to leave California are improving their financial conditions and becoming more likely to own a home in the years after their relocation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s clear that when they move,” White said. “They’re moving to much, much, much more affordable places.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "With the cost of living ranking high on the list of concerns for Californians heading into the June 2 primary, gubernatorial candidates from both parties are centering their campaigns on affordability.",
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"title": "Here’s How the Candidates for Governor Would Make California More Affordable | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cem>How We Get By\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cem>full series here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s next governor will inherit an affordability crisis that defies easy fixes: housing costs that have outpaced incomes for years, electricity rates among the highest in the nation, and gas prices nearly $2 above the national average — all in a state whose economy remains the envy of the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12074132/xavier-becerra-on-why-his-upbringing-and-career-give-him-an-edge-over-other-gubernatorial-candidates\">Xavier Becerra\u003c/a>, the former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary and a Democratic candidate for governor, rattled off some of the biggest cost pressures as he spoke to more than 300 people in a high school gym in Concord last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The cost of affording a home, your health care, groceries, gasoline,” he said. “That cost of living crisis that we face here — it becomes existential.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The price of housing and energy has been unaffordable for Californians long before a post-pandemic surge in inflation made the cost of living the top concern for voters across America — and a potent political cudgel for politicians from President Donald Trump to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s no surprise that, in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082125/inside-californias-billionaire-tax-fight-and-the-wide-open-governors-race\">most competitive primary\u003c/a> for California governor in a generation, candidates from both parties are making affordability central to their campaigns, vowing to ease a cost crunch fueled in part by the state’s top-heavy economy, strict land-use policies and complicated transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is often leading the nation — most of the time, that’s for good,” said Neale Mahoney, director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. “But on some of these issues, we’ve been the canary in the coal mine for some of the problems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082334\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082334 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260423_-XAVIERBECERRA_EG_004-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260423_-XAVIERBECERRA_EG_004-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260423_-XAVIERBECERRA_EG_004-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260423_-XAVIERBECERRA_EG_004-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Murphy, center-left, and friend Kimberley J. Rodler, hold handmade signs in support of Xavier Becerra’s gubernatorial bid during a campaign event at Mount Diablo High School in Concord on Thursday, April 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The challenge: affordability has come to encompass such a wide range of cost pressures that the next governor could struggle to even define success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While leading candidates in both parties agree that housing costs are the greatest strain on residents’ budgets, other affordability proposals run the gamut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the Democrats, Becerra is vowing to freeze utility rates and home insurance premiums; investor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075769/tom-steyer-lays-out-vision-for-a-more-affordable-california-in-run-for-governor\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a> wants to return windfall oil profits to residents; San José Mayor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075490/san-jose-mayor-matt-mahan-positions-himself-as-a-change-candidate-in-governors-race\">Matt Mahan\u003c/a> would pause the gas tax, and former congressmember \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078450/katie-porters-run-for-governor-centers-tax-cuts-corporate-accountability\">Katie Porter\u003c/a> is promising free child care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the Republican side, former Fox News commentator \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12071133/former-fox-news-host-steve-hilton-lays-out-vision-for-california-governorship\">Steve Hilton\u003c/a> wants to cut taxes and car registration fees, while Riverside County Sheriff \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081096/riverside-county-sheriff-chad-bianco-on-his-faith-cutting-taxes-and-ballot-seizure\">Chad Bianco\u003c/a> vows to bring down gas prices by encouraging oil production in the state.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The specifics may differ, but the political upside of running a campaign focused on affordability is undeniable. Trump hammered former Vice President Kamala Harris over inflation on his way to victory in 2024. The following year, Mamdani made the cost of rent and transit a centerpiece of his successful campaign for mayor — while fellow Democrats won governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia on affordability platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the California governor’s race, candidates have leaned into their own personal histories as they attempt to connect with voters struggling with rising costs. Becerra has shared stories of his immigrant parents saving up to buy a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan has recounted his working-class upbringing in the farming town of Watsonville. Hilton has pointed to his humble beginnings as the son of Hungarian refugees in London, and Porter has openly discussed the struggle of raising a family in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m the single mom of three teenagers who believe they will not be able to buy houses here in California,” Porter said at a debate hosted by CBS in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voters like Luis Hernandez, who attended Becerra’s event in Concord, are looking for more than just campaign rhetoric. Hernandez is self-employed and buys health insurance through the Covered California exchange. He bemoaned rising premiums that are eating into his earnings and wants to know how the former attorney general plans to lower costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Home insurance, car insurance and the worst is health insurance,” Hernandez said. “Everything is going up, so it’s tough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traditional metrics for measuring affordability don’t neatly capture voter angst about cost pressures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082354\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082354\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260504_KATIEPORTERTOWNHALL_GC-11-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1307\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260504_KATIEPORTERTOWNHALL_GC-11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260504_KATIEPORTERTOWNHALL_GC-11-KQED-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260504_KATIEPORTERTOWNHALL_GC-11-KQED-1536x1004.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter (D) speaks during a town hall at KQED on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A longstanding gauge of purchasing power is real income, which measures pay after taking into account price increases. Real personal income \u003ca href=\"https://www.bea.gov/data/income-saving/real-personal-income-states\">increased by\u003c/a> 5.5% in California between 2023 and 2024 — the largest jump in the nation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. And real income for the median household in the state has \u003ca href=\"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSCAA672N\">risen to new highs\u003c/a> after a post-pandemic decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies \u003ca href=\"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8dj134w8\">survey\u003c/a> last month found a whopping 40% of likely voters picked “reducing the cost of living” as a top priority of California’s next governor. No other issue came close — and voters also prioritized specific cost-related solutions, such as building affordable housing (12%), lowering gas prices (10%), reducing health care costs (7%) and cutting utility rates (4%).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the macroeconomic statistics miss is that the most acute price pressures are on essential goods and services that are hardest for Californians to substitute, Mahoney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe the price of a flat screen TV has decreased, and that’s great,” Mahoney said. “But the price for health care, the price for housing … these are really essentials and price increases there hit in a really inescapable way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081062\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081062\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chad Bianco, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, speaks during a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. \u003ccite>(Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nowhere is that more evident than the cost of housing. The median home value in California is more than twice the national average, putting homeownership, long a key pathway to middle-class financial security, increasingly out of reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793\">new report\u003c/a> from the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office found that a mid-tier home in California (a house with a value in the 35th to 65th percentile) costs about $775,000. Since 2020, the income needed to qualify for a mortgage on a mid-tier home has increased far more quickly than median household income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While home prices have stabilized, housing has become less affordable for most Californians in recent years,” the report found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The leading contenders for governor share a focus on the supply side of the housing equation: finding ways to increase development and construction by streamlining or removing regulations and easing local zoning restrictions.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While Democrats Becerra, Porter and Steyer said they will focus their efforts on promoting denser housing near transit, Republicans Bianco and Hilton have argued for extending the growth of single-family neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do not have a land problem in California,” Bianco said in an April debate hosted by Nexstar. “We have a management problem, we have a government problem that we absolutely must take away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But affordability concerns in the state extend beyond the price of renting or buying a home, said Evan White, executive director of the California Policy Lab at the University of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On average, Californians pay about twice as much for housing as the average American, they pay 60% more for utilities than the average American, they pay 40% more for gas than the average American, they pay 11% more for groceries than the average American,” he said. “We’re the most expensive state by far.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of those cost pressures reflect California’s perilous position in the midst of a complicated transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Californians are being hit with the costs of damaging wildfires fueled by years of climate pollution, while the state’s carbon-intensive oil and gas industry faces an uncertain future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gas prices in the state currently average $6.16 a gallon, per AAA — the highest in the nation. The gap between California and the national average is due in part to the cost of state fuel blend requirements, environmental regulations and what UC Berkeley professor Severin Borenstein has \u003ca href=\"https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/whats-the-matter-with-californias-gasoline-prices/\">dubbed\u003c/a> the “mystery gasoline surcharge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bianco has proposed eliminating the state’s 61-cent-per-gallon gas tax, which funds road repair and transit. Hilton wants to reduce the gas tax and suspend the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which adds about eight to 10 cents per gallon. Steyer, by contrast, said he would seek to impose a cap on refinery profits and return any profits above the cap to residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there are electricity prices, which have increased dramatically in recent years — in large part due to investments made by investor-owned utilities to prevent future wildfires. The costs of those mitigation measures, such as undergrounding wires and trimming trees, were passed along to customers of PG&E, SoCal Edison and SDG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082331\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082331 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/043006TOMSTEYER_GH_007-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/043006TOMSTEYER_GH_007-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/043006TOMSTEYER_GH_007-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/043006TOMSTEYER_GH_007-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer speaks during a town hall event on April 30, 2026, in San José. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Steyer has proposed cutting the utilities’ guaranteed rate of return for capital projects and making it easier for cities and counties to form publicly owned power providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to have a different rule at the Public Utilities Commission about how they get paid,” Steyer told KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjXvKfldFlI&t=346s\">Political Breakdown\u003c/a>. “And we’re going to introduce local competition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hilton is also a supporter of locally-owned utilities. He is proposing to reclassify hydropower from large dams as “renewable energy,” which he argues will reduce what utilities need to spend on wind and solar power to meet the state’s climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the next governor has the ability to make progress on reducing these cost burdens, White cautioned that the challenges won’t be fixed overnight — or alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078808\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078808\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SteveHiltonAP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SteveHiltonAP.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SteveHiltonAP-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SteveHiltonAP-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve Hilton speaks during the California gubernatorial candidate debate on Feb. 3, 2026, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Laure Andrillon/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The governor could do a lot to improve not only housing costs, but utility costs and other high costs in the state,” he said. “But they do need to be able to work with the Legislature effectively to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even before polls close in the June 2 primary, many Californians struggling to afford life in the state have already voted with their feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>White \u003ca href=\"https://capolicylab.org/priced-out-relocation-amidst-californias-affordability-crisis/\">studied the migration trends\u003c/a> of California households over the past decade. Forty-two states send fewer people to California than they did 10 years ago. And families who decided to leave California are improving their financial conditions and becoming more likely to own a home in the years after their relocation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s clear that when they move,” White said. “They’re moving to much, much, much more affordable places.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "california-lgbtq-youth-build-safe-spaces-in-rural-san-benito-county",
"title": "California LGBTQ+ Youth Build Safe Spaces in Rural San Benito County",
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"headTitle": "California LGBTQ+ Youth Build Safe Spaces in Rural San Benito County | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced jointly by \u003ca href=\"https://benitolink.com/\">BenitoLink\u003c/a> and CatchLight as part of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.catchlight.io/mental-health\">mental health visual desk\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. \u003cem>\u003cstrong>Jessica Parga\u003c/strong> wrote and photographed for BenitoLink/CatchLight, with illustrations by \u003cstrong>Brea Spencer\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a winter evening, four friends meet to catch up at a local park. Among them is Gael Barba-Solis, a student who created one of the area’s only LGBTQ+ support spaces. They talk about their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, their classes and teachers, and rehash old stories. They often walk around this spot in their town as it is one of the few areas they like to meet up outside of school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barba-Solis, 17, identifies as a trans man and pansexual, someone who is attracted to others regardless of their gender or sex. He said he feels very fluid when it comes to gender expression and started exploring his gender identity in middle school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As time went on, as I continued being called ‘she,’ being called my dead name, I didn’t like it,” Barba-Solis said. “I thought I was okay with it, but it eventually just sort of created like almost this pit in my stomach whenever I was called it. It was putting me in a dark place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The road was messy. He said he felt overwhelmed with thoughts of his identity and would spend nights in tears. Accepting himself, he said, felt like the easy part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He shared that his closest friends, Haiden Dizon, Mae Pung and David, who wished to not include his last name to protect his privacy, have been there for him whenever he needed them and have been like a family. He said his older sister, who’s also in the LGBTQ+ community, was the first person in his family to use his preferred name and pronouns. Through her, he found the confidence to start a trans club at his high school, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082937\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082937\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Founder and President Gael Barba-Solis leads a Mariposa Club meeting at Hollister High School on Jan. 14, 2026. Barba-Solis started the club during his sophomore year of high school to build a transgender community. Students now meet every Wednesday during lunch to discuss trans issues, safe spaces and related topics.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Barba-Solis said he created the Mariposa Club to support transgender teens at Hollister High School and give them the safe space he didn’t feel he always had. Club meetings focus on education, with topics ranging from how to safely use a chest binder (made for flattening the chest for a more masculine appearance) to LGBTQ+-friendly cities for after graduation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now it’s like I have breathing room. I can actually be who I am,” Barba-Solis said. “I have friends who support me and who are there for me, as well as my parents and my sister.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2024, California approved behavioral health reform through \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/BHT/Pages/FAQ-Prop1.aspx\">Prop 1\u003c/a>. It consists of two parts: the Behavioral Health Services Act and the commitment of $6.4 billion to fund mental health services through the Behavioral Health Bond. BHSA replaces the Mental Health Services Act of 2004 and focuses on substance use disorders, mental illness and housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Benito County will receive funding from Prop. 1 dispersed through multiple agencies, including to Youth Recovery Connections and directly to the county’s Behavioral Health Department. While planning continues, LGBTQ+ youth in the county work to build their own safe spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082938\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082938\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Haiden Dizon carries Mae Pung’s backpack as they walk to a local Dollar Tree after school in Hollister, Calif., on March 10, 2026. Pung said she was diagnosed with depression around seventh grade, but since meeting Dizon a few years ago, she feels her symptoms have become more manageable.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When it comes to LGBTQ+ awareness and support, San Benito County is lacking compared to nearby areas, said Maxx D’Elia, a trans man who has worked in mental health supporting students in the county.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I worked with kids where they’d say ‘I want to be a boy because I want to date girls,’ And I’m like, ‘Well, you don’t have to be a boy to date a girl. You could date a girl and be a girl,” said D’Elia. “I think that’s where a lot more education needs to come in. I would also want these kids to know that it’s okay to slow down as well and take that time to just figure it out. There’s no rush. We’re all just figuring out life one day at a time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 2018-2024, the county’s Behavioral Health Department funded San Benito+, a safe space for the queer community to gather at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanbenitocountyca.gov/departments/behavioral-health/esperanza-center\">Esperanza Center\u003c/a> in downtown Hollister.[aside postID=news_12061805 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/IMG_1204-scaled.jpg']“There’s a lot of issues that pop up for this population that may need some specialized care, and usually it’s not addressed quickly and efficiently enough,” Interim Behavioral Health Director Rachel White said regarding the San Benito+ program. “And there’s consequences to that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2024, the program was shut down because of a lack of involvement. White said she recognizes that the program missed the mark and that it was just not reaching its community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Losing San Benito+ was a true setback in our little community and we currently lack quality gender and sexuality affirming care in this area,” D’Elia wrote in an email in May 2025. “That’s not to say it doesn’t exist, but it’s so far and few between. If you head over to Gilroy and Morgan Hill, they only have an LGBTQ support group that runs twice a month in Gilroy and twice a month in Morgan Hill at the libraries which are run by the LGBTQ Youth Space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>D’Elia, who worked at San Benito+ with a handful of other part-time employees, said the program would do better with a full-time leader that could put in time to build outreach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Benito County Behavioral Health is working to get feedback from youth on what they need for future resources and, depending on those responses, possibly integrate the queer community’s needs into a Transitional Age Youth program, White said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behavioral Health created a \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyrZUJkWOlW0pRDZG1DKwJyun7H36u_KaFm3C9NjiQvSWtUA/viewform\">public survey\u003c/a> to gather input on a possible youth space. It closes on May 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082950\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082950\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT31-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT31-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT31-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT31-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A cyclist passes the Esperanza Center in Hollister, Calif., on April 21, 2026. From about 2018 to 2024, the San Benito County Behavioral Health Department funded San Benito+, a safe space for the queer community to gather at the downtown center.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>San Benito County Behavioral Health has been allocated an average of $4.5 million annually from BHSA under Prop. 1, which goes into effect July 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Youth Recovery Connections (YRC), a local organization, was approved for funding through Prop 1 and the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>YRC does prevention work focused on substance use and mental health. According to YRC Executive Director Michael Salinas, the group is now working on opening a second site in Hollister with expanded services to include treatment delivered by counselors and clinicians—the only place in the county to do so apart from the Behavioral Health Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BenitoLink interviewed six youths in the LGBTQ+ community for this article. They talked about their lives, the challenges they face and where they find emotional support, be it community organizations, family or significant others. BenitoLink agreed to allow a few to remain unnamed to protect their identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082942\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1334px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082942\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1334\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH06-KQED.jpg 1334w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH06-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH06-KQED-1025x1536.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1334px) 100vw, 1334px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarabi Grace Muñoz, 14, holds up a post from her friend’s Instagram profile on April 7, 2026. Muñoz said her friend had been struggling with addiction and recently returned to rehab.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One anonymous local teen, who identifies as gay, said YRC has had a positive impact on his life, supporting him through the loss of loved ones, addiction, self harm and involvement in the juvenile justice system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both he and his older sister have struggled with addiction. They agreed to go to rehab at the same time but when he finished his program, he learned that his sister took her own life. YRC paid for her funeral, for which he said he was forever grateful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was the second person he lost to suicide, he said, following the death two years ago of his best friend, who identified as queer.\u003cbr>\nThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 41% of LGBTQ+ students have seriously considered suicide compared to 13% of their cisgender — those whose gender corresponds to their sex assigned at birth — and heterosexual peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After multiple attempts to follow up with this teen, BenitoLink heard from those close to him that he broke parole and returned to rehab. While reporting this story, he also turned 18, qualifying him as a legal adult and thus possibly facing more serious consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082951\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082951\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT320A-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT320A-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT320A-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT320A-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarabi Grace Muñoz, 14, poses for a portrait at a skate park she considers a safe space for herself on April 8, 2026. Muñoz moved to Hollister from San Jos\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">é \u003c/span> last year and still travels out to the city to visit a psychologist for mental health support.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to The Trevor Project, a leading LGBTQ+ suicide prevention nonprofit whose research is used in peer-reviewed publications, communities themselves have an impact on a person’s mental health.[aside postID=arts_13977595 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/2025.04.14_MIDDLETON_SANDYSTONE_15-KQED.jpg']The project’s 2024 survey of nearly 34,000 youth states that “LGBTQ+ young people who reported living in very accepting communities attempted suicide at less than half the rate of those who reported living in very unaccepting communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarabi Grace Muñoz, 14, identifies as female and as omnisexual, which falls under the bisexual umbrella of sexual preferences. She moved to Hollister last year after living in San Jose and said she feels like the environment is far less welcoming of queer people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been called a faggot more times than I can count,” Muñoz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She recounted a few memories including one where she was denied entry to a church because of her appearance, noting that she was sporting a Pride pin that day. Another time, an acquaintance found out Muñoz had dated a woman and told her to repent while she still could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t even really express the judgment and, like, disdain that is pushed upon you until you’re just walking the street with your friend and somebody yells out ‘faggot!’ and tries to hit you with a coke can,” Muñoz said, describing an incident she experienced at a Hollister Farmers Market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082943\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH07-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarabi Grace MuÒoz, 14, at a skate park she considers a safe space for herself on April 8, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Muñoz said she told her mom around the age of nine that she liked girls, and was generally accepted by her immediate family. She said she feels that her identity is complicated and harder to understand for her extended family, who are Catholic immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her family’s religion factored into her guilt about her sexuality and impacted her mental health, she said. At one time, part of her believed that God didn’t love her, that she had disappointed Him because she was in love with somebody that was not a man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muñoz said she started therapy around the second grade during a tumultuous childhood. A few years ago, she was diagnosed with major depressive disorder by a psychologist in San Jose. Despite trying to find services in Hollister, she said her family faced limited options and decided to make the 50-mile commute to San Jose for providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CDC reports 65% of LGBTQ+ students feeling sad or hopeless compared to 31% of cisgender and heterosexual students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082944\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1334px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082944\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1334\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH08-KQED.jpg 1334w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH08-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH08-KQED-1025x1536.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1334px) 100vw, 1334px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An anonymous teen who identifies as queer sits for a portrait in California in 2026. He said it felt good to talk about his identity with close friends and to have a space where he felt accepted.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A teen in San Benito County who identifies as queer asked to remain anonymous for this article so he can come out to his family on his own timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He shared that when he was about 12, he realized he’s never only been attracted to girls. A few years later, as a sophomore in high school, he started opening up to friends around him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just felt good to talk about it with people because it’s something that I’d never talked about with anyone before,” he said. “I’m the kind of person where it feels good to get thoughts outside of my head and out into the world. It just feels like less mental weight on me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teen said that he feels especially safe and comfortable when hanging out with his female friends, as some boys his age have a stigma around queer people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not that they’re necessarily unaccepting,” he said. “It’s just that they’re kind of like, ‘Do your own thing and I’ll do my thing and I don’t really want to be associated with it.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082945\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082945\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH09-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH09-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH09-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH09-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An anonymous teen who identifies as queer stands for a portrait in California in 2026. They said they fear for their safety outside of school because they do not know how others feel about queer people.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A lingering fear exists for a few of the students interviewed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another teen interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous to protect their identity from their parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re very respectful,” they said about their parents. “There’s just some things they don’t really understand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As someone who is a part of the queer community, they specifically mentioned they fear for their safety outside of school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like I always kind of have to assume how people feel about, like, queer identities or especially transgender people,” they said. “It’s just because I don’t know, I think it’s just really a safety thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082939\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082939\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gael Barba-Solis attends a rehearsal for \u003cem data-start=\"41\" data-end=\"57\">School of Rock\u003c/em> at Hollister High School on Feb. 27, 2026. One of his tasks that afternoon was recording the cast for a montage that would play during the musical.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Barba-Solis reported being called slurs in middle school, and just outside of Hollister High a stranger threw apples at his back while he carried an LGBTQ+ flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My identity, I’m secure in,” Barba-Solis said. “I know who I am. It’s more of the fear of others, I guess, and sort of kind of like how they would react.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several teens interviewed said their school is where they feel like they can be most open about their sexuality or gender identity. Clubs, and the friends they’ve made through extracurriculars, plus the occasional school counselor or teacher, make up common safe spaces for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Notably, the theater departments at both Anzar and Hollister High schools provide welcoming organizations for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Transgender and nonbinary young people who had access to gender-affirming clothing, gender-neutral bathrooms at school, and had their pronouns respected by the people they live with, had lower rates of attempted suicide compared to those who did not,” according to the Trevor Project 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082940\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082940\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH05-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gael Barba-Solis holds a ladder for his friend Xier Perry as he adds graffiti to the \u003cem data-start=\"85\" data-end=\"101\">School of Rock\u003c/em> set at Hollister High School on Feb. 28, 2026. The workday included building and painting set pieces while show tunes played in the background.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082935\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082935\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260228-JP-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH221-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260228-JP-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH221-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260228-JP-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH221-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260228-JP-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH221-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students add graffiti to one of the School of Rock set pieces at Hollister High School on Feb. 28, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082946\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082946\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mae Pung, 17, poses for a portrait at Hollister High School on Feb. 12, 2026. Pung, who identifies as bisexual, said coming out to her family was a smooth process because several relatives are also part of the LGBTQ community, making it feel normalized.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pung, 17, supports her friend, Barba-Solis as vice president of Mariposa Club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pung identifies as bisexual but said she feels like her identity isn’t something she’s had to explain to her family. She also takes comfort in knowing she has other family members that identify with the LBGTQ+ community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think my parents are already like normalized—normal to it—I guess. So it was relatively just smooth for me to just come out as bisexual,” Pung said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pung said she has struggled with mental health in the past but feels like it’s affected her less in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think I was diagnosed in middle school, but then we lost our insurance to our health care,” Pung said. “I couldn’t go to the doctors anymore. So I couldn’t get my prescription for the antidepressants I was taking. And then I met Haiden [Dizon]. I started dating Haiden and it kind of just went away. I think there are still a little bit of, like, remnants of it there, especially with anxiety occasionally. But for the most part, I’m not too bad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dizon and Pung have been dating for just over two years, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082947\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082947\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH11-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH11-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH11-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Haiden Dizon and Mae Pung sit at Hollister High School after getting snacks on March 10, 2026. Pung said she was diagnosed with depression around seventh grade, but since meeting Dizon a few years ago, she feels her symptoms have become less severe.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>D’Elia said hands-on education for community providers and students would be beneficial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barba-Solis has given presentations to Hollister High staff to help educate them about the LGBTQ+ community. In March, a joint effort of the Gay Straight Alliance and the Mariposa Club resulted in another staff presentation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Youth Alliance, launched its first LGBTQ+-centered meeting in February. It’s currently working with Barba-Solis and the Mariposa Club to create more safe spaces and opportunities for education. The goal is to create two groups, Barba-Solis said, including one for youth and one for parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To find that middle ground and that compromise, it kind of has to be accepted that this is both a journey for you and your parents, because it is,” Barba-Solis said. “It’s to help parents recognize that but also help educate them on how to support their child. Because I know some parents do try. It’s the trouble of understanding and then therefore that leads to miscommunication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional consulting work with community members on the use of resources is documented in the Community Planning Process Report. The BHSA Integrated Plan, outlining the use of funds and a proposed budget for 2026-2029 will be submitted in June to the San Benito County Board of Supervisors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A draft is available for virtual public comment until May 21. A public hearing for final community input is also set for May 21. Currently, YRC Director Salinas says the goal is to have YRC treatment services available to the community in early 2027.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082948\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082948\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH12-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH12-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH12-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH12-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From top left) Mae Pung, Haiden Dizon, David and Gael Barba-Solis laugh during a portrait in Hollister, Calif., on Jan. 20, 2026. Gael, who identifies as a transgender man, said he has found support in his longtime friends, whom he considers family.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Looking forward, Barba-Solis said he hopes to see centers for students while supporting those who aren’t “out” with discretion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we can just start with support groups or even, like, professionals who do specialize in identities with queer youth, I think that that could be a good start, especially in Hollister.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"https://california-newsroom.beehiiv.com/\">The California Newsroom\u003c/a>\u003c/strong> is a statewide public media collaboration that includes NPR, CalMatters, KQED in San Francisco, LAist and KCRW in Los Angeles, KPBS in San Diego and other partner stations across California.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>24/7 crisis and suicide resources\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Benito County Behavioral Health Crisis Line: (831) 902-2911\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TrevorLifeline: 1-866-488-7386 for 24/7 support via phone, text, or online instant messaging\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 9-8-8 is available via call, text and online chat\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "LGBTQ+ youth in San Benito County are building peer-led safe spaces and advocacy networks as local leaders reassess mental health funding, gender-affirming care and support services under California’s Prop. 1 behavioral health reforms.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced jointly by \u003ca href=\"https://benitolink.com/\">BenitoLink\u003c/a> and CatchLight as part of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.catchlight.io/mental-health\">mental health visual desk\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. \u003cem>\u003cstrong>Jessica Parga\u003c/strong> wrote and photographed for BenitoLink/CatchLight, with illustrations by \u003cstrong>Brea Spencer\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a winter evening, four friends meet to catch up at a local park. Among them is Gael Barba-Solis, a student who created one of the area’s only LGBTQ+ support spaces. They talk about their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, their classes and teachers, and rehash old stories. They often walk around this spot in their town as it is one of the few areas they like to meet up outside of school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barba-Solis, 17, identifies as a trans man and pansexual, someone who is attracted to others regardless of their gender or sex. He said he feels very fluid when it comes to gender expression and started exploring his gender identity in middle school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As time went on, as I continued being called ‘she,’ being called my dead name, I didn’t like it,” Barba-Solis said. “I thought I was okay with it, but it eventually just sort of created like almost this pit in my stomach whenever I was called it. It was putting me in a dark place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The road was messy. He said he felt overwhelmed with thoughts of his identity and would spend nights in tears. Accepting himself, he said, felt like the easy part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He shared that his closest friends, Haiden Dizon, Mae Pung and David, who wished to not include his last name to protect his privacy, have been there for him whenever he needed them and have been like a family. He said his older sister, who’s also in the LGBTQ+ community, was the first person in his family to use his preferred name and pronouns. Through her, he found the confidence to start a trans club at his high school, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082937\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082937\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Founder and President Gael Barba-Solis leads a Mariposa Club meeting at Hollister High School on Jan. 14, 2026. Barba-Solis started the club during his sophomore year of high school to build a transgender community. Students now meet every Wednesday during lunch to discuss trans issues, safe spaces and related topics.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Barba-Solis said he created the Mariposa Club to support transgender teens at Hollister High School and give them the safe space he didn’t feel he always had. Club meetings focus on education, with topics ranging from how to safely use a chest binder (made for flattening the chest for a more masculine appearance) to LGBTQ+-friendly cities for after graduation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now it’s like I have breathing room. I can actually be who I am,” Barba-Solis said. “I have friends who support me and who are there for me, as well as my parents and my sister.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2024, California approved behavioral health reform through \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/BHT/Pages/FAQ-Prop1.aspx\">Prop 1\u003c/a>. It consists of two parts: the Behavioral Health Services Act and the commitment of $6.4 billion to fund mental health services through the Behavioral Health Bond. BHSA replaces the Mental Health Services Act of 2004 and focuses on substance use disorders, mental illness and housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Benito County will receive funding from Prop. 1 dispersed through multiple agencies, including to Youth Recovery Connections and directly to the county’s Behavioral Health Department. While planning continues, LGBTQ+ youth in the county work to build their own safe spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082938\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082938\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Haiden Dizon carries Mae Pung’s backpack as they walk to a local Dollar Tree after school in Hollister, Calif., on March 10, 2026. Pung said she was diagnosed with depression around seventh grade, but since meeting Dizon a few years ago, she feels her symptoms have become more manageable.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When it comes to LGBTQ+ awareness and support, San Benito County is lacking compared to nearby areas, said Maxx D’Elia, a trans man who has worked in mental health supporting students in the county.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I worked with kids where they’d say ‘I want to be a boy because I want to date girls,’ And I’m like, ‘Well, you don’t have to be a boy to date a girl. You could date a girl and be a girl,” said D’Elia. “I think that’s where a lot more education needs to come in. I would also want these kids to know that it’s okay to slow down as well and take that time to just figure it out. There’s no rush. We’re all just figuring out life one day at a time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 2018-2024, the county’s Behavioral Health Department funded San Benito+, a safe space for the queer community to gather at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanbenitocountyca.gov/departments/behavioral-health/esperanza-center\">Esperanza Center\u003c/a> in downtown Hollister.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“There’s a lot of issues that pop up for this population that may need some specialized care, and usually it’s not addressed quickly and efficiently enough,” Interim Behavioral Health Director Rachel White said regarding the San Benito+ program. “And there’s consequences to that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2024, the program was shut down because of a lack of involvement. White said she recognizes that the program missed the mark and that it was just not reaching its community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Losing San Benito+ was a true setback in our little community and we currently lack quality gender and sexuality affirming care in this area,” D’Elia wrote in an email in May 2025. “That’s not to say it doesn’t exist, but it’s so far and few between. If you head over to Gilroy and Morgan Hill, they only have an LGBTQ support group that runs twice a month in Gilroy and twice a month in Morgan Hill at the libraries which are run by the LGBTQ Youth Space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>D’Elia, who worked at San Benito+ with a handful of other part-time employees, said the program would do better with a full-time leader that could put in time to build outreach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Benito County Behavioral Health is working to get feedback from youth on what they need for future resources and, depending on those responses, possibly integrate the queer community’s needs into a Transitional Age Youth program, White said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behavioral Health created a \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyrZUJkWOlW0pRDZG1DKwJyun7H36u_KaFm3C9NjiQvSWtUA/viewform\">public survey\u003c/a> to gather input on a possible youth space. It closes on May 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082950\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082950\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT31-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT31-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT31-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT31-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A cyclist passes the Esperanza Center in Hollister, Calif., on April 21, 2026. From about 2018 to 2024, the San Benito County Behavioral Health Department funded San Benito+, a safe space for the queer community to gather at the downtown center.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>San Benito County Behavioral Health has been allocated an average of $4.5 million annually from BHSA under Prop. 1, which goes into effect July 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Youth Recovery Connections (YRC), a local organization, was approved for funding through Prop 1 and the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>YRC does prevention work focused on substance use and mental health. According to YRC Executive Director Michael Salinas, the group is now working on opening a second site in Hollister with expanded services to include treatment delivered by counselors and clinicians—the only place in the county to do so apart from the Behavioral Health Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BenitoLink interviewed six youths in the LGBTQ+ community for this article. They talked about their lives, the challenges they face and where they find emotional support, be it community organizations, family or significant others. BenitoLink agreed to allow a few to remain unnamed to protect their identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082942\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1334px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082942\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1334\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH06-KQED.jpg 1334w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH06-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH06-KQED-1025x1536.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1334px) 100vw, 1334px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarabi Grace Muñoz, 14, holds up a post from her friend’s Instagram profile on April 7, 2026. Muñoz said her friend had been struggling with addiction and recently returned to rehab.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One anonymous local teen, who identifies as gay, said YRC has had a positive impact on his life, supporting him through the loss of loved ones, addiction, self harm and involvement in the juvenile justice system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both he and his older sister have struggled with addiction. They agreed to go to rehab at the same time but when he finished his program, he learned that his sister took her own life. YRC paid for her funeral, for which he said he was forever grateful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was the second person he lost to suicide, he said, following the death two years ago of his best friend, who identified as queer.\u003cbr>\nThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 41% of LGBTQ+ students have seriously considered suicide compared to 13% of their cisgender — those whose gender corresponds to their sex assigned at birth — and heterosexual peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After multiple attempts to follow up with this teen, BenitoLink heard from those close to him that he broke parole and returned to rehab. While reporting this story, he also turned 18, qualifying him as a legal adult and thus possibly facing more serious consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082951\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082951\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT320A-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT320A-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT320A-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/JPARGA-EDIT320A-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarabi Grace Muñoz, 14, poses for a portrait at a skate park she considers a safe space for herself on April 8, 2026. Muñoz moved to Hollister from San Jos\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">é \u003c/span> last year and still travels out to the city to visit a psychologist for mental health support.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to The Trevor Project, a leading LGBTQ+ suicide prevention nonprofit whose research is used in peer-reviewed publications, communities themselves have an impact on a person’s mental health.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The project’s 2024 survey of nearly 34,000 youth states that “LGBTQ+ young people who reported living in very accepting communities attempted suicide at less than half the rate of those who reported living in very unaccepting communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarabi Grace Muñoz, 14, identifies as female and as omnisexual, which falls under the bisexual umbrella of sexual preferences. She moved to Hollister last year after living in San Jose and said she feels like the environment is far less welcoming of queer people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been called a faggot more times than I can count,” Muñoz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She recounted a few memories including one where she was denied entry to a church because of her appearance, noting that she was sporting a Pride pin that day. Another time, an acquaintance found out Muñoz had dated a woman and told her to repent while she still could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t even really express the judgment and, like, disdain that is pushed upon you until you’re just walking the street with your friend and somebody yells out ‘faggot!’ and tries to hit you with a coke can,” Muñoz said, describing an incident she experienced at a Hollister Farmers Market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082943\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH07-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarabi Grace MuÒoz, 14, at a skate park she considers a safe space for herself on April 8, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Muñoz said she told her mom around the age of nine that she liked girls, and was generally accepted by her immediate family. She said she feels that her identity is complicated and harder to understand for her extended family, who are Catholic immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her family’s religion factored into her guilt about her sexuality and impacted her mental health, she said. At one time, part of her believed that God didn’t love her, that she had disappointed Him because she was in love with somebody that was not a man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muñoz said she started therapy around the second grade during a tumultuous childhood. A few years ago, she was diagnosed with major depressive disorder by a psychologist in San Jose. Despite trying to find services in Hollister, she said her family faced limited options and decided to make the 50-mile commute to San Jose for providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CDC reports 65% of LGBTQ+ students feeling sad or hopeless compared to 31% of cisgender and heterosexual students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082944\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1334px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082944\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1334\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH08-KQED.jpg 1334w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH08-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH08-KQED-1025x1536.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1334px) 100vw, 1334px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An anonymous teen who identifies as queer sits for a portrait in California in 2026. He said it felt good to talk about his identity with close friends and to have a space where he felt accepted.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A teen in San Benito County who identifies as queer asked to remain anonymous for this article so he can come out to his family on his own timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He shared that when he was about 12, he realized he’s never only been attracted to girls. A few years later, as a sophomore in high school, he started opening up to friends around him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just felt good to talk about it with people because it’s something that I’d never talked about with anyone before,” he said. “I’m the kind of person where it feels good to get thoughts outside of my head and out into the world. It just feels like less mental weight on me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teen said that he feels especially safe and comfortable when hanging out with his female friends, as some boys his age have a stigma around queer people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not that they’re necessarily unaccepting,” he said. “It’s just that they’re kind of like, ‘Do your own thing and I’ll do my thing and I don’t really want to be associated with it.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082945\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082945\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH09-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH09-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH09-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH09-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An anonymous teen who identifies as queer stands for a portrait in California in 2026. They said they fear for their safety outside of school because they do not know how others feel about queer people.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A lingering fear exists for a few of the students interviewed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another teen interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous to protect their identity from their parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re very respectful,” they said about their parents. “There’s just some things they don’t really understand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As someone who is a part of the queer community, they specifically mentioned they fear for their safety outside of school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like I always kind of have to assume how people feel about, like, queer identities or especially transgender people,” they said. “It’s just because I don’t know, I think it’s just really a safety thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082939\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082939\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gael Barba-Solis attends a rehearsal for \u003cem data-start=\"41\" data-end=\"57\">School of Rock\u003c/em> at Hollister High School on Feb. 27, 2026. One of his tasks that afternoon was recording the cast for a montage that would play during the musical.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Barba-Solis reported being called slurs in middle school, and just outside of Hollister High a stranger threw apples at his back while he carried an LGBTQ+ flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My identity, I’m secure in,” Barba-Solis said. “I know who I am. It’s more of the fear of others, I guess, and sort of kind of like how they would react.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several teens interviewed said their school is where they feel like they can be most open about their sexuality or gender identity. Clubs, and the friends they’ve made through extracurriculars, plus the occasional school counselor or teacher, make up common safe spaces for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Notably, the theater departments at both Anzar and Hollister High schools provide welcoming organizations for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Transgender and nonbinary young people who had access to gender-affirming clothing, gender-neutral bathrooms at school, and had their pronouns respected by the people they live with, had lower rates of attempted suicide compared to those who did not,” according to the Trevor Project 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082940\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082940\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH05-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gael Barba-Solis holds a ladder for his friend Xier Perry as he adds graffiti to the \u003cem data-start=\"85\" data-end=\"101\">School of Rock\u003c/em> set at Hollister High School on Feb. 28, 2026. The workday included building and painting set pieces while show tunes played in the background.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082935\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082935\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260228-JP-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH221-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260228-JP-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH221-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260228-JP-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH221-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260228-JP-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH221-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students add graffiti to one of the School of Rock set pieces at Hollister High School on Feb. 28, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082946\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082946\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mae Pung, 17, poses for a portrait at Hollister High School on Feb. 12, 2026. Pung, who identifies as bisexual, said coming out to her family was a smooth process because several relatives are also part of the LGBTQ community, making it feel normalized.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pung, 17, supports her friend, Barba-Solis as vice president of Mariposa Club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pung identifies as bisexual but said she feels like her identity isn’t something she’s had to explain to her family. She also takes comfort in knowing she has other family members that identify with the LBGTQ+ community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think my parents are already like normalized—normal to it—I guess. So it was relatively just smooth for me to just come out as bisexual,” Pung said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pung said she has struggled with mental health in the past but feels like it’s affected her less in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think I was diagnosed in middle school, but then we lost our insurance to our health care,” Pung said. “I couldn’t go to the doctors anymore. So I couldn’t get my prescription for the antidepressants I was taking. And then I met Haiden [Dizon]. I started dating Haiden and it kind of just went away. I think there are still a little bit of, like, remnants of it there, especially with anxiety occasionally. But for the most part, I’m not too bad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dizon and Pung have been dating for just over two years, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082947\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082947\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH11-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH11-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH11-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Haiden Dizon and Mae Pung sit at Hollister High School after getting snacks on March 10, 2026. Pung said she was diagnosed with depression around seventh grade, but since meeting Dizon a few years ago, she feels her symptoms have become less severe.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>D’Elia said hands-on education for community providers and students would be beneficial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barba-Solis has given presentations to Hollister High staff to help educate them about the LGBTQ+ community. In March, a joint effort of the Gay Straight Alliance and the Mariposa Club resulted in another staff presentation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Youth Alliance, launched its first LGBTQ+-centered meeting in February. It’s currently working with Barba-Solis and the Mariposa Club to create more safe spaces and opportunities for education. The goal is to create two groups, Barba-Solis said, including one for youth and one for parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To find that middle ground and that compromise, it kind of has to be accepted that this is both a journey for you and your parents, because it is,” Barba-Solis said. “It’s to help parents recognize that but also help educate them on how to support their child. Because I know some parents do try. It’s the trouble of understanding and then therefore that leads to miscommunication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional consulting work with community members on the use of resources is documented in the Community Planning Process Report. The BHSA Integrated Plan, outlining the use of funds and a proposed budget for 2026-2029 will be submitted in June to the San Benito County Board of Supervisors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A draft is available for virtual public comment until May 21. A public hearing for final community input is also set for May 21. Currently, YRC Director Salinas says the goal is to have YRC treatment services available to the community in early 2027.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082948\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082948\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH12-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH12-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH12-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/BREA-YOUTH-MENTAL-HEALTH12-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From top left) Mae Pung, Haiden Dizon, David and Gael Barba-Solis laugh during a portrait in Hollister, Calif., on Jan. 20, 2026. Gael, who identifies as a transgender man, said he has found support in his longtime friends, whom he considers family.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Looking forward, Barba-Solis said he hopes to see centers for students while supporting those who aren’t “out” with discretion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we can just start with support groups or even, like, professionals who do specialize in identities with queer youth, I think that that could be a good start, especially in Hollister.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"https://california-newsroom.beehiiv.com/\">The California Newsroom\u003c/a>\u003c/strong> is a statewide public media collaboration that includes NPR, CalMatters, KQED in San Francisco, LAist and KCRW in Los Angeles, KPBS in San Diego and other partner stations across California.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>24/7 crisis and suicide resources\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Benito County Behavioral Health Crisis Line: (831) 902-2911\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TrevorLifeline: 1-866-488-7386 for 24/7 support via phone, text, or online instant messaging\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 9-8-8 is available via call, text and online chat\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Bay Area schools were working to restore access to Canvas on Friday after \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082828/canvas-hacked-bay-area-colleges-disrupted-by-global-cyberattack-on-learning-platform\">a cyberattack\u003c/a> on the company behind the widely used learning platform left students and teachers around the world without access to homework and exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford University, the California State University system and the Peralta Colleges — Berkeley City College, College of Alameda, Laney College and Merritt College — were among the institutions that had begun to restore the software’s use on Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The situation has been challenging, but people here in the East Bay are resilient,” Mark Johnson, a spokesperson for the Peralta Community College District, told KQED by email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley said access “has largely been restored and final exams will proceed as scheduled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Foothill and De Anza Colleges in the South Bay said their security team restored Canvas access at 1 p.m. Friday, and said the “attacker did not access core Canvas functionality, downloaded but did not have access to and make any changes to user data, grades, or course content.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instructure, the Salt Lake City-based company that develops and publishes Canvas, said early Friday that it had brought the platform back online, but many individual schools and groups that use the system were conducting their own checks before restoring access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>University officials \u003ca href=\"https://lts.calstate.edu/csu-canvas-incident-reports\">said Friday\u003c/a> that “in an abundance of caution, CSU has not yet fully reintegrated our campus systems or data connections with Canvas,” though they planned to do so by the afternoon after completing security protocols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students at all 116 California community colleges, along with thousands of K-12 schools, colleges and universities nationwide, rely on the learning software daily to view and submit assignments, take part in class discussions, access syllabi and learning materials, and take exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12052037\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12052037\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/StanfordUniversity.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1513\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/StanfordUniversity.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/StanfordUniversity-160x121.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/StanfordUniversity-1536x1162.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of the entrances to the Main Quad on the Stanford University campus on April 9, 2019. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A black-hat hacker group named ShinyHunters took credit for the attack, though the group’s role has not yet been confirmed. On Thursday, students like Emily Mills, at City College of San Francisco, were greeted by what appeared to be a ransom note threatening to release sensitive information when they tried logging into Canvas to take their exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe it’s scheduled maintenance, maybe it’s ShinyHunters,” Mills joked in a post on \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/sf_mills/status/2052507484565524640\">X\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heidi Skolnik, part-time faculty at Chabot College in Hayward, said she was teaching an in-person statistics course Thursday when a student showed her the hackers’ message.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t really read it very carefully other than to see its threatening and really obnoxious tone, and really alarming dark colors on the screen,” she said.[aside postID=news_12082828 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/20250929_UCBERKELEY_GC-7-KQED.jpg']Without access to Canvas to share course materials, Skolnik passed around a flash drive to all 20 students to download the data they needed for class to their laptops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skolnik said the experience made her reflect on how the experience must feel to community college students, particularly those who are only enrolled in online courses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is so much a part of their world it seems,” she said,” scams and hacks and all of the privacy issues that come up in online spaces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Instructure said it took Canvas offline Thursday after “the unauthorized actor involved in our ongoing security incident made changes to the pages that appeared when some students and teachers were logged in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The attack “exploited an issue related to Free-For-Teacher accounts,” company spokesperson Brian Watkins said in an email shortly after 1 a.m. Friday, referring to a demo program for educators whose schools weren’t Canvas users. After temporarily shutting down those accounts, Watkins said, the company restored access to Canvas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the California Community Colleges Security Center, Instructure first detected the intrusion April 29, “immediately began containment, and confirmed the incident publicly over the following days.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12038977\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12038977\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students make their on campus at CSU East Bay on Feb. 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, CSU officials said Instructure’s CEO and chief security officer notified them of a data breach potentially compromising Canvas users’ personal information, but Canvas remained up and they said there was “no indication of ongoing risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days later, it appeared the cyberattackers still had access to Instructure’s systems, posting the ransom messages to Canvas login pages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on the investigation to date, there is no evidence that passwords, Social Security numbers, financial information, or dates of birth were involved, community college and CSU officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/kkr-instructure-sued-after-data-breach-of-canvas-edtech-tool?taid=69fe4a284bb6d90001e00489&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter\">\u003cem>Bloomberg\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Instructure was slapped with at least seven federal suits this week, including six filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. KKR, a global investment firm that \u003ca href=\"https://www.instructure.com/press-release/instructure-to-be-acquired-by-KKR\">purchased\u003c/a> Instructure in 2024 for about $4.8 billion, is a named defendant in a case filed in the Southern District of New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah Powazek, a research program director at UC Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, said schools are a “treasure trove” of sensitive data, particularly that of minors. They’re also particularly vulnerable because there aren’t many education software vendors like Instructure, and they have a large number of users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These companies have a very high market share,” Powazek said. “Almost every school in the country at the K-12 level uses some combination of the same tools, which means that there’s a very high value for hackers that are able to intercept or get some sort of access to one of these products — because it means they won’t have access to just one school … they might be able to access the accounts of multiple schools across the country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Powazek and other cybersecurity experts said the attack highlighted education’s reliance on digital technology, which creates a single point of failure in the supply chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cliff Steinhauer, director of Information Security and Engagement at the \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/GWxsCyPmRxsAVy4DiZfvUxsEUO?domain=staysafeonline.org/\">National Cybersecurity Alliance\u003c/a>, said it should be a wake-up call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12016604\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12016604\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The UC Berkeley Campus in Berkeley on Aug. 17, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The Canvas breach underscores how deeply schools now depend on centralized digital platforms to keep day-to-day academic operations running,” Steinhauer said. “Even if highly sensitive financial information was not exposed, educational records, communications, and identity data can still be valuable to cybercriminals for phishing, impersonation, and future attacks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Powazek said the Canvas attack is similar to a 2024 breach of PowerSchool, one of the most widely used student information systems in North America. In that case, a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/data-hack-powerschool-assumption-university-31923c3df90f72caff12e2175aa8b37e\">Massachusetts \u003c/a>college student was charged for the ransomware attack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stakes of both national incidents, she said, should encourage schools and private companies like Instructure to bolster their security profiles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When these services go down, it can impact the entire country’s day of school, which is a massive responsibility for those products,” Powazek said. “And I think it really hammers home how important it is. Some of these really technical cybersecurity controls on the backend can have a real impact on the day-to-day lives of most Americans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Bay Area schools were working to restore access to Canvas on Friday after \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082828/canvas-hacked-bay-area-colleges-disrupted-by-global-cyberattack-on-learning-platform\">a cyberattack\u003c/a> on the company behind the widely used learning platform left students and teachers around the world without access to homework and exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford University, the California State University system and the Peralta Colleges — Berkeley City College, College of Alameda, Laney College and Merritt College — were among the institutions that had begun to restore the software’s use on Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The situation has been challenging, but people here in the East Bay are resilient,” Mark Johnson, a spokesperson for the Peralta Community College District, told KQED by email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley said access “has largely been restored and final exams will proceed as scheduled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Foothill and De Anza Colleges in the South Bay said their security team restored Canvas access at 1 p.m. Friday, and said the “attacker did not access core Canvas functionality, downloaded but did not have access to and make any changes to user data, grades, or course content.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instructure, the Salt Lake City-based company that develops and publishes Canvas, said early Friday that it had brought the platform back online, but many individual schools and groups that use the system were conducting their own checks before restoring access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>University officials \u003ca href=\"https://lts.calstate.edu/csu-canvas-incident-reports\">said Friday\u003c/a> that “in an abundance of caution, CSU has not yet fully reintegrated our campus systems or data connections with Canvas,” though they planned to do so by the afternoon after completing security protocols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students at all 116 California community colleges, along with thousands of K-12 schools, colleges and universities nationwide, rely on the learning software daily to view and submit assignments, take part in class discussions, access syllabi and learning materials, and take exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12052037\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12052037\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/StanfordUniversity.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1513\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/StanfordUniversity.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/StanfordUniversity-160x121.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/StanfordUniversity-1536x1162.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of the entrances to the Main Quad on the Stanford University campus on April 9, 2019. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A black-hat hacker group named ShinyHunters took credit for the attack, though the group’s role has not yet been confirmed. On Thursday, students like Emily Mills, at City College of San Francisco, were greeted by what appeared to be a ransom note threatening to release sensitive information when they tried logging into Canvas to take their exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe it’s scheduled maintenance, maybe it’s ShinyHunters,” Mills joked in a post on \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/sf_mills/status/2052507484565524640\">X\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heidi Skolnik, part-time faculty at Chabot College in Hayward, said she was teaching an in-person statistics course Thursday when a student showed her the hackers’ message.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t really read it very carefully other than to see its threatening and really obnoxious tone, and really alarming dark colors on the screen,” she said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Without access to Canvas to share course materials, Skolnik passed around a flash drive to all 20 students to download the data they needed for class to their laptops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skolnik said the experience made her reflect on how the experience must feel to community college students, particularly those who are only enrolled in online courses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is so much a part of their world it seems,” she said,” scams and hacks and all of the privacy issues that come up in online spaces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Instructure said it took Canvas offline Thursday after “the unauthorized actor involved in our ongoing security incident made changes to the pages that appeared when some students and teachers were logged in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The attack “exploited an issue related to Free-For-Teacher accounts,” company spokesperson Brian Watkins said in an email shortly after 1 a.m. Friday, referring to a demo program for educators whose schools weren’t Canvas users. After temporarily shutting down those accounts, Watkins said, the company restored access to Canvas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the California Community Colleges Security Center, Instructure first detected the intrusion April 29, “immediately began containment, and confirmed the incident publicly over the following days.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12038977\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12038977\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250219-CSU-East-Bay-File-MD-09_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students make their on campus at CSU East Bay on Feb. 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, CSU officials said Instructure’s CEO and chief security officer notified them of a data breach potentially compromising Canvas users’ personal information, but Canvas remained up and they said there was “no indication of ongoing risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days later, it appeared the cyberattackers still had access to Instructure’s systems, posting the ransom messages to Canvas login pages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on the investigation to date, there is no evidence that passwords, Social Security numbers, financial information, or dates of birth were involved, community college and CSU officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/kkr-instructure-sued-after-data-breach-of-canvas-edtech-tool?taid=69fe4a284bb6d90001e00489&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter\">\u003cem>Bloomberg\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Instructure was slapped with at least seven federal suits this week, including six filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. KKR, a global investment firm that \u003ca href=\"https://www.instructure.com/press-release/instructure-to-be-acquired-by-KKR\">purchased\u003c/a> Instructure in 2024 for about $4.8 billion, is a named defendant in a case filed in the Southern District of New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah Powazek, a research program director at UC Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, said schools are a “treasure trove” of sensitive data, particularly that of minors. They’re also particularly vulnerable because there aren’t many education software vendors like Instructure, and they have a large number of users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These companies have a very high market share,” Powazek said. “Almost every school in the country at the K-12 level uses some combination of the same tools, which means that there’s a very high value for hackers that are able to intercept or get some sort of access to one of these products — because it means they won’t have access to just one school … they might be able to access the accounts of multiple schools across the country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Powazek and other cybersecurity experts said the attack highlighted education’s reliance on digital technology, which creates a single point of failure in the supply chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cliff Steinhauer, director of Information Security and Engagement at the \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/GWxsCyPmRxsAVy4DiZfvUxsEUO?domain=staysafeonline.org/\">National Cybersecurity Alliance\u003c/a>, said it should be a wake-up call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12016604\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12016604\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230817-UC-BERKELEY-CAMPUS-MD-02_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The UC Berkeley Campus in Berkeley on Aug. 17, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The Canvas breach underscores how deeply schools now depend on centralized digital platforms to keep day-to-day academic operations running,” Steinhauer said. “Even if highly sensitive financial information was not exposed, educational records, communications, and identity data can still be valuable to cybercriminals for phishing, impersonation, and future attacks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Powazek said the Canvas attack is similar to a 2024 breach of PowerSchool, one of the most widely used student information systems in North America. In that case, a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/data-hack-powerschool-assumption-university-31923c3df90f72caff12e2175aa8b37e\">Massachusetts \u003c/a>college student was charged for the ransomware attack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stakes of both national incidents, she said, should encourage schools and private companies like Instructure to bolster their security profiles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When these services go down, it can impact the entire country’s day of school, which is a massive responsibility for those products,” Powazek said. “And I think it really hammers home how important it is. Some of these really technical cybersecurity controls on the backend can have a real impact on the day-to-day lives of most Americans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-california-report-magazine/id1314750545?mt=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Listen to this and more in-depth storytelling by subscribing to The California Report Magazine podcast.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"routes-Site-routes-Post-Title-__Title__title\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082926/californias-governors-race-remains-wide-open-heres-what-to-know-before-the-primary\">California’s Governor’s Race Remains Wide Open. Here’s What to Know Before the Primary\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From controversies to campaign promises, California’s governor’s race is national news. And with ballots landing in mailboxes already, the race is still a toss-up — with eight candidates vying for the state’s top job. We sit down with KQED political correspondents Guy Marzorati and Marisa Lagos to hear more about the candidates and what we should look for in the final weeks before Election Day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082596/in-northern-californias-maternity-desert-a-humboldt-midwife-offers-intimate-births\">\u003cb>In Northern California’s Maternity Desert, a Humboldt Midwife Offers Intimate Births\u003c/b>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite being the nation’s most populous state, there’s increasingly fewer places to give birth. In rural areas, giving birth can be difficult and dangerous as local hospitals shut down maternity wards. In Humboldt County, some women now travel hours in labor to reach the nearest delivery room. One small birth center in Eureka is trying to fill that gap with a different approach to care. There, midwives spend more time with patients and offer a calmer, more personal setting for births. It’s a model that could help address the state’s growing maternity care crisis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 16px;font-weight: 400\">[ad fullwidth]\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-california-report-magazine/id1314750545?mt=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Listen to this and more in-depth storytelling by subscribing to The California Report Magazine podcast.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"routes-Site-routes-Post-Title-__Title__title\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082926/californias-governors-race-remains-wide-open-heres-what-to-know-before-the-primary\">California’s Governor’s Race Remains Wide Open. Here’s What to Know Before the Primary\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From controversies to campaign promises, California’s governor’s race is national news. And with ballots landing in mailboxes already, the race is still a toss-up — with eight candidates vying for the state’s top job. We sit down with KQED political correspondents Guy Marzorati and Marisa Lagos to hear more about the candidates and what we should look for in the final weeks before Election Day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082596/in-northern-californias-maternity-desert-a-humboldt-midwife-offers-intimate-births\">\u003cb>In Northern California’s Maternity Desert, a Humboldt Midwife Offers Intimate Births\u003c/b>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite being the nation’s most populous state, there’s increasingly fewer places to give birth. In rural areas, giving birth can be difficult and dangerous as local hospitals shut down maternity wards. In Humboldt County, some women now travel hours in labor to reach the nearest delivery room. One small birth center in Eureka is trying to fill that gap with a different approach to care. There, midwives spend more time with patients and offer a calmer, more personal setting for births. It’s a model that could help address the state’s growing maternity care crisis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 16px;font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Ballots are already landing in mailboxes across California and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/california/governor\">the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> is entering its final stretch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first open race in almost 30 years, the gap between candidates widened further after former Rep. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079583/eric-swalwell-ends-california-governor-campaign-after-sexual-assault-allegations\">Eric Swalwell dropped out\u003c/a>. With no clear frontrunner, voters are left navigating a crowded, unsettled field still taking shape just weeks before the primary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/mlagos\">Marisa Lagos\u003c/a>, host of KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/politicalbreakdown\">\u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and KQED politics correspondent \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/gmarzorati\">Guy Marzorati\u003c/a> spoke with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiareportmagazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> to break down the race and key players.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both have hosted \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pressroom/12710/gubernatorial-candidate-tom-steyer-added-to-kqeds-town-hall-series\">KQED’s Gubernatorial town hall series\u003c/a>, set to continue through the month with Sheriff Chad Bianco on May 18, and Tom Steyer on May 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how to understand the race\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos:\u003c/strong> Democrats are a little confused because there’s no blockbuster candidate like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, but being a rock star is not a prerequisite to being governor. You do have a number of very experienced, smart Democrats in this race, along with some serious Republicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the frontrunners of a crowded field\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati: \u003c/strong>We’re still in a position where, no matter what poll you’re looking at, none of these candidates are breaking 20% — so it’s all very muddled. But we have seen the emergence of a top five in most polling: two Republicans — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078793/trump-endorses-steve-hilton-for-california-governor-giving-gop-a-front-runner\">Steve Hilton\u003c/a>, a former Fox News commentator, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081096/riverside-county-sheriff-chad-bianco-on-his-faith-cutting-taxes-and-ballot-seizure\">Chad Bianco\u003c/a> — and on the Democratic side, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082059/xavier-becerra-backpedals-on-single-payer-as-he-woos-powerful-doctors-lobby\">Xavier Becerra\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080843/rivals-target-steyer-becerra-in-debate-as-california-governor-race-tightens\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082254/porter-focuses-on-california-housing-costs-ai-plans-at-kqed-town-hall\">Katie Porter\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072282\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072282\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton, Matt Mahan, Tom Steyer, Tony Thurmond, Antonio Villaraigosa and Betty Yee stand on the stage during the California gubernatorial candidate debate on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Laure Andrillon/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are more candidates on the Democratic side we could talk about, but this top five has started to take shape in recent weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most notable shift has been Eric Swalwell dropping out — he had been seen as a frontrunner — and since then, Becerra has gained ground in just the past few weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how Democratic candidates are positioning themselves\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Xavier Becerra really relying on his experience. He was a former attorney general. He was in Congress for several decades before that, representing Los Angeles and then he was in the Biden administration as Health and Human Service Secretary, and we’re both hearing him talk about that, and a lot of people attack him on that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Tom Steyer spent more than $160 million of his own money on this campaign so far that has smashed every self-funding record in California history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What makes it so fascinating to me is you have this billionaire in a time where a lot of Democrats are kind of looking sideways at billionaires. You have this billionaire in Tom Steyer who is running as the most progressive candidate in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081068\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081068\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve Hilton, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, left, and Tom Steyer, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for California, fist bump prior to a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. Photographer: Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He’s getting supported by Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders group. He’s supporting single payer healthcare. He’s pushing to raise corporate taxes to bring in money for schools. So it’s like this dichotomy of this personality, this investor, this billionaire, and this progressive platform that he talked to us about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Katie Porter struggled at times to find lane in this race. She was pretty progressive. One of her mentors is Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts who did endorse her recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the fall, she got hit by some videos, including one from five years ago snapping at a staff member. She’s had to apologize for that. But you do have to wonder if it sort of created a ceiling for her and you can’t disentangle her gender. So fair or not, that has really dogged her in this race.[aside label=\"From the 2026 Voter Guide\" link1='https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/governor,Learn about the California Governor Election' hero=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2026/04/Aside-California-Governor-2026-Primary-Election-1200x1200@2x.png]\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> We also have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075490/san-jose-mayor-matt-mahan-positions-himself-as-a-change-candidate-in-governors-race\">Matt Mahan\u003c/a>, the mayor of San José, who’s running. He got into this race somewhat late. He’s trying to run as a centrist Democrat, trying to maybe have some crossover appeal to independence and even Republicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077747/antonio-villaraigosas-second-act-can-a-pragmatist-lead-california\">Antonio Villaraigosa\u003c/a> who was mayor of Los Angeles over a decade ago, is more of a centrist candidate as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077118/tony-thurmond-carves-out-a-progressive-path-in-the-race-for-california-governor\">Tony Thurmond\u003c/a>, the state superintendent of public instruction, has held statewide office, but has kind of struggled to break through at all in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how the primaries work\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>In most states, Republicans face off in a primary and Democrats face off [in a primary]. The winner of each face each other in the fall. But in California, it could be anybody in the race. And so we have seen that really set up the system where all these Democrats are splitting the vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the Republican side\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Both of them call the one-party rule for the last decade a failure. They say that Democrats own all of the problems in this state — the affordability crisis, the housing crisis, the homelessness crisis — and that they would be a new chapter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bianco is a Riverside County sheriff. He’s definitely further to the right than Hilton. Bianco made some waves earlier this year when he seized tens of thousands of ballots from last November’s election, kind of echoing some of these claims we’ve heard from the president around election security. And he has really tried to pitch himself as an outsider.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081062\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081062\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chad Bianco, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, speaks during a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. \u003ccite>(Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Steve Hilton is trying to run as a more traditional Republican, yet he is associated with Trump and the kind of MAGA movement. He has made an effort to both appeal to more hardcore conservatives and moderate Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Hilton and Bianco, if you look at their platforms, are very much running on a sort of traditional conservative anti-tax, pro-growth and pro-business.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what voters are weighing\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I honestly hear from voters wrestling with this idea of, “Okay, do I want someone who I know is going to kind of shake things up and bring change or do I want someone I know who is going to fight Trump well?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what to watch in the final stretch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos:\u003c/strong> How the candidates, especially on the Democratic side, continue to interact with one another will be worth watching. Are they throwing bombs or are they just really trying to push a positive message about themselves to break through and get voters to come out and vote by June 2?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> If you look at California as kind of a laboratory for democratic politics, like what would the future leader of the state kind of put forward for the rest of the country? Because a lot of these issues, you know, housing affordability, the energy transition, we’re kind of the canary in the coal mine in a lot of ways for what the country is going to be going through. So I think there are a lot of differences you see between Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Ballots are already landing in mailboxes across California and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/california/governor\">the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> is entering its final stretch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first open race in almost 30 years, the gap between candidates widened further after former Rep. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079583/eric-swalwell-ends-california-governor-campaign-after-sexual-assault-allegations\">Eric Swalwell dropped out\u003c/a>. With no clear frontrunner, voters are left navigating a crowded, unsettled field still taking shape just weeks before the primary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/mlagos\">Marisa Lagos\u003c/a>, host of KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/politicalbreakdown\">\u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and KQED politics correspondent \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/gmarzorati\">Guy Marzorati\u003c/a> spoke with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiareportmagazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> to break down the race and key players.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both have hosted \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pressroom/12710/gubernatorial-candidate-tom-steyer-added-to-kqeds-town-hall-series\">KQED’s Gubernatorial town hall series\u003c/a>, set to continue through the month with Sheriff Chad Bianco on May 18, and Tom Steyer on May 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how to understand the race\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos:\u003c/strong> Democrats are a little confused because there’s no blockbuster candidate like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, but being a rock star is not a prerequisite to being governor. You do have a number of very experienced, smart Democrats in this race, along with some serious Republicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the frontrunners of a crowded field\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati: \u003c/strong>We’re still in a position where, no matter what poll you’re looking at, none of these candidates are breaking 20% — so it’s all very muddled. But we have seen the emergence of a top five in most polling: two Republicans — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078793/trump-endorses-steve-hilton-for-california-governor-giving-gop-a-front-runner\">Steve Hilton\u003c/a>, a former Fox News commentator, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081096/riverside-county-sheriff-chad-bianco-on-his-faith-cutting-taxes-and-ballot-seizure\">Chad Bianco\u003c/a> — and on the Democratic side, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082059/xavier-becerra-backpedals-on-single-payer-as-he-woos-powerful-doctors-lobby\">Xavier Becerra\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080843/rivals-target-steyer-becerra-in-debate-as-california-governor-race-tightens\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082254/porter-focuses-on-california-housing-costs-ai-plans-at-kqed-town-hall\">Katie Porter\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072282\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072282\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton, Matt Mahan, Tom Steyer, Tony Thurmond, Antonio Villaraigosa and Betty Yee stand on the stage during the California gubernatorial candidate debate on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Laure Andrillon/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are more candidates on the Democratic side we could talk about, but this top five has started to take shape in recent weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most notable shift has been Eric Swalwell dropping out — he had been seen as a frontrunner — and since then, Becerra has gained ground in just the past few weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how Democratic candidates are positioning themselves\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Xavier Becerra really relying on his experience. He was a former attorney general. He was in Congress for several decades before that, representing Los Angeles and then he was in the Biden administration as Health and Human Service Secretary, and we’re both hearing him talk about that, and a lot of people attack him on that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Tom Steyer spent more than $160 million of his own money on this campaign so far that has smashed every self-funding record in California history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What makes it so fascinating to me is you have this billionaire in a time where a lot of Democrats are kind of looking sideways at billionaires. You have this billionaire in Tom Steyer who is running as the most progressive candidate in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081068\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081068\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve Hilton, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, left, and Tom Steyer, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for California, fist bump prior to a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. Photographer: Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He’s getting supported by Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders group. He’s supporting single payer healthcare. He’s pushing to raise corporate taxes to bring in money for schools. So it’s like this dichotomy of this personality, this investor, this billionaire, and this progressive platform that he talked to us about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Katie Porter struggled at times to find lane in this race. She was pretty progressive. One of her mentors is Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts who did endorse her recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the fall, she got hit by some videos, including one from five years ago snapping at a staff member. She’s had to apologize for that. But you do have to wonder if it sort of created a ceiling for her and you can’t disentangle her gender. So fair or not, that has really dogged her in this race.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> We also have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075490/san-jose-mayor-matt-mahan-positions-himself-as-a-change-candidate-in-governors-race\">Matt Mahan\u003c/a>, the mayor of San José, who’s running. He got into this race somewhat late. He’s trying to run as a centrist Democrat, trying to maybe have some crossover appeal to independence and even Republicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077747/antonio-villaraigosas-second-act-can-a-pragmatist-lead-california\">Antonio Villaraigosa\u003c/a> who was mayor of Los Angeles over a decade ago, is more of a centrist candidate as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077118/tony-thurmond-carves-out-a-progressive-path-in-the-race-for-california-governor\">Tony Thurmond\u003c/a>, the state superintendent of public instruction, has held statewide office, but has kind of struggled to break through at all in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how the primaries work\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>In most states, Republicans face off in a primary and Democrats face off [in a primary]. The winner of each face each other in the fall. But in California, it could be anybody in the race. And so we have seen that really set up the system where all these Democrats are splitting the vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the Republican side\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Both of them call the one-party rule for the last decade a failure. They say that Democrats own all of the problems in this state — the affordability crisis, the housing crisis, the homelessness crisis — and that they would be a new chapter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bianco is a Riverside County sheriff. He’s definitely further to the right than Hilton. Bianco made some waves earlier this year when he seized tens of thousands of ballots from last November’s election, kind of echoing some of these claims we’ve heard from the president around election security. And he has really tried to pitch himself as an outsider.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081062\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081062\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chad Bianco, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, speaks during a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. \u003ccite>(Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Steve Hilton is trying to run as a more traditional Republican, yet he is associated with Trump and the kind of MAGA movement. He has made an effort to both appeal to more hardcore conservatives and moderate Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Hilton and Bianco, if you look at their platforms, are very much running on a sort of traditional conservative anti-tax, pro-growth and pro-business.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what voters are weighing\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I honestly hear from voters wrestling with this idea of, “Okay, do I want someone who I know is going to kind of shake things up and bring change or do I want someone I know who is going to fight Trump well?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what to watch in the final stretch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos:\u003c/strong> How the candidates, especially on the Democratic side, continue to interact with one another will be worth watching. Are they throwing bombs or are they just really trying to push a positive message about themselves to break through and get voters to come out and vote by June 2?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> If you look at California as kind of a laboratory for democratic politics, like what would the future leader of the state kind of put forward for the rest of the country? Because a lot of these issues, you know, housing affordability, the energy transition, we’re kind of the canary in the coal mine in a lot of ways for what the country is going to be going through. So I think there are a lot of differences you see between Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Between her two young toddlers, her work as a seaweed farmer on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/humboldt-county\">Humboldt County’s \u003c/a>coast, and a third baby on the way, Leslie Booher doesn’t have a lot of spare time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But her prenatal appointments with her \u003ca href=\"https://midwifemade.com/2509-2/\">midwife, Laura Doyle\u003c/a>, give Booher the opportunity to really focus on the pregnancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me, feeling more informed and curious makes you feel much more empowered in your body,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike the \u003ca href=\"https://www.uclahealth.org/medical-services/birthplace/pregnancy-newborn-health/prenatal-education/your-pregnancy/schedule-prenatal-care\">typical\u003c/a> 10- to 15-minute OB check-up, Booher and Doyle spent a full hour together in early March, chatting on a comfortable sofa at \u003ca href=\"https://www.moonstonemidwives.com/\">Moonstone Midwives Birth Center\u003c/a> in Eureka, California. The cozy room where they met has kids’ toys in one corner, calm pastel-colored paintings on the wall, and feels more like a friend’s living room than a clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle listened to the baby’s heartbeat, took Booher’s blood pressure, and reviewed her blood test results. The midwife also asked about Booher’s stress levels, whether she’s exercising, and if she’s getting enough time to herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082734\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082734 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_08-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_08-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_08-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Midwife Laura Doyle measures expecting parent Leslie Booher’s fundal height during an appointment at Moonstone Midwives Birth Center in Eureka on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alexandra Hootnick for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“In prenatal care, what I am learning the most is who this person is,” Doyle said. “Yes, I look at blood work. Yes, I’m feeling babies and their growth. More importantly, I’m like: ‘Who are you? What are the relationships like in your life? Are you supported? Are you fearful?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She continued: “Every little story I get out of somebody is like telling me so much about how they are, and often, how their birth will be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across California, and across the U.S., there are now fewer places in which to give birth. Hospitals — facing rising costs, staff shortages and falling birth rates — are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2024/09/new-maternity-care-closures/\">closing\u003c/a> maternity wards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rural parts of the state are especially impacted: many women in these regions must travel for hours in labor to give birth, which can cause \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciline.org/public-health/obstetric-care-rural-america/\">serious complications\u003c/a> for moms and babies, including a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciline.org/public-health/obstetric-care-rural-america/\">higher risk\u003c/a> of pre-term births, c-sections and infant deaths. In California, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CFH/DMCAH/Pages/Health-Topics/Pregnancy-Related-Mortality.aspx\">maternal mortality rate\u003c/a> is higher in rural communities than in urban areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Humboldt and other northwestern parts of the state, two hospitals have closed their labor and delivery units in the past five years, leaving the entire county with just one hospital in which to give birth, Providence St. Joseph in Eureka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12007627 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/AGBontaAP1-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are coming from a couple hours [away] to have their babies,” Doyle said. “We only have one hospital that is doing deliveries for hours in every direction. It’s super stressful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abundant research has shown that midwifery care leads to \u003ca href=\"https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/the-value-of-midwives-during-prenatal-care-and-birth/\">better\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29944777/\">outcomes\u003c/a> for many of these challenges. As medically-trained healthcare professionals, midwives offer a different kind of care that can help meet this need. They can place IVs, do sutures, and give antibiotics — but they don’t administer epidurals or perform c-sections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Doing unmedicated birth means we’re relying on preventative care, so good nutrition, really good sleep, low stress and getting these babies in an optimal position,” Doyle said. “Unfortunately, standard medical practice doesn’t have time for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they offer women longer prenatal appointments, safe birth outside a hospital setting, and regular postpartum check-ups —a crucial time, because \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK592630/\">most pregnancy-related deaths\u003c/a> occur in the postpartum period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the vast majority of people can’t afford midwifery care. Midwives are not covered by most insurers, and incredibly low reimbursement rates mean that most midwives also can’t accept low-income clients on Medi-Cal. Holly Smith, a midwife and co-lead of \u003ca href=\"https://www.midwiferyaccessca.org/\">Midwifery Access California\u003c/a>, estimated that Medi-Cal reimburses around $3,000 per birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Midwives across the state have told us that the minimum they need is $7,000-$8,000 per birth, in order to sustain their practice,” said Smith, adding that the actual cost is around $14,000-$15,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle has found a way to serve low-income families in Humboldt, where the median household income is about 60% of the state median.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I always say, we’re all working hard to be poor,” Doyle said. “The stress is real for most people in this community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082736\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082736\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Midwife Laura Doyle at Moonstone Midwives Birth Center in Eureka on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alexandra Hootnick for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082737 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_29-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_29-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_29-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_29-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Midwife Laura Doyle (right) chats with expecting parent Kaylee Biane and her daughter Josie in the waiting room at Moonstone Midwives Birth Center in Eureka on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alexandra Hootnick for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After a year of meetings, Doyle was able to negotiate a better deal with the local Medi-Cal payer in Humboldt, Partnership Healthplan. This makes her birth center one of the very few in California able to accept low-income families. Around 75% of current Moonstone clients are on Medi-Cal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so frustrating to know that you can only have this if you can afford it,” said Doyle. “That is just wrong. Everybody should have access to good midwifery care. It’s really been the motivator of my career: people should be empowered in their birth experience no matter who they are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moonstone is located opposite Humboldt’s last remaining labor and delivery ward, at Providence St. Joseph, so that if a birthing person wants an epidural, needs surgery or the baby has to go to the NICU, the transfer is quick and easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve always been able to reach out to doctors and consult with them,” Doyle said, of the hospital staff. “We’ve built that rapport; they trust us and we trust them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community midwives, meaning those who don’t work in a hospital, attend around \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/MaternityCareAlmanac2023.pdf\">1% of births\u003c/a> in California — but \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ListeningMothersCAFullSurveyReport2018.pdf\">research\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/resource/advancing-midwifery-birth-equity-california/\">has shown\u003c/a> that more birthing people would like to have this kind of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some women seek midwifery care because they’ve had a difficult experience in the hospital. Claire Henderson gave birth at Mad River Community Hospital nearby in Arcata, before it closed its maternity ward in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They had three birthing rooms and at that time I think nine babies were being born, or were just born, so there was no room for me,” Henderson said. “But I was in full labor, so they stuck me in this little exam room we called a ‘closet,’ and that’s where I had my baby.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Henderson said she felt unheard by the hospital staff, who kept offering her medicine she didn’t want. Even though her baby was born healthy, she felt overwhelmed — so when she got pregnant a second time, she knew she wanted a midwife instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe in hospital births, but I knew I wanted a natural, physiological birth,” she said, “uninterrupted as much as possible, and to have everything calm down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12080800 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_20-KQED.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Moonstone, Henderson gave birth in a birth suite with the lights dimmed low. “I was very present in my body and brain. The midwives checked the baby here and there, but I wasn’t on continuous monitoring — they left us alone a lot of the time. I was laughing in between contractions. It felt so natural.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even so, Henderson said: “Birth is really hard. It was still one of the most intense pains of my life. But I didn’t need anything for [it]. I just needed to feel secure and safe – and that was my team and the environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle said she gave birth to her first baby at home in a very remote area, supported by midwives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most impactful thing was their patience, and [the way they] really listened to me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle trained as a midwife herself and after many years of attending home births, she opened Moonstone with \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">co-owner Calista Young\u003c/span> in 2014. It’s still the county’s only birth center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we have a really unique culture in Humboldt,” she said. “I always call it the ‘707 culture.’ It’s like a different way of being, and a lot of it was driven by the outlaw culture of marijuana growing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle believes that mindset has influenced birthing people’s approach to their healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of these women are like, ‘No, I’m not doing that. I’m declining this, I’m declining that,” she said. “‘I want to do it this way.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082740\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082740\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The exterior of Moonstone Midwives Birth Center in Eureka on May 4, 2026. The midwives moved to this location in January of 2026 in order to be closer to Providence St. Joseph, the one remaining hospital with a labor and delivery unit in Humboldt county. \u003ccite>(Alexandra Hootnick for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On a typical day at the birth center, pregnant women will come in for their check-ups or group prenatal classes, while new moms can join postpartum support groups. Moonstone has two birth suites which resemble hotel rooms: comfy queen beds and large tubs for water birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Occasionally a mom will drop by with her newborn and a box of cookies or muffins for the midwives, as a little token of thanks. Doyle has lost count of how many babies she’s delivered, but estimated she’s passed the 1,000 mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can tell that’s what’s happened when I’m going through the grocery store,” she said, laughing, “because I see everybody and it’s hard to get anywhere, which is the sweet thing about being in a small town.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Clare Wiley is a Los Angeles based reporter covering women’s health. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was co-published and supported by the journalism nonprofit the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2F705e1645.streak-link.com%2FC1mohHHz81VdDMSRUwkUFhI3%2Fhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.economichardship.org%252F&data=05%7C02%7C%7C2df2b5528d9e466cdb2608de94ebfbf4%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C639111938429288639%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0NPfR6pRTwbXNJHuUbcNiAt3kkjrCO%2Bl7shM6fBqucc%3D&reserved=0\">\u003cem>Economic Hardship Reporting Project\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Between her two young toddlers, her work as a seaweed farmer on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/humboldt-county\">Humboldt County’s \u003c/a>coast, and a third baby on the way, Leslie Booher doesn’t have a lot of spare time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But her prenatal appointments with her \u003ca href=\"https://midwifemade.com/2509-2/\">midwife, Laura Doyle\u003c/a>, give Booher the opportunity to really focus on the pregnancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me, feeling more informed and curious makes you feel much more empowered in your body,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike the \u003ca href=\"https://www.uclahealth.org/medical-services/birthplace/pregnancy-newborn-health/prenatal-education/your-pregnancy/schedule-prenatal-care\">typical\u003c/a> 10- to 15-minute OB check-up, Booher and Doyle spent a full hour together in early March, chatting on a comfortable sofa at \u003ca href=\"https://www.moonstonemidwives.com/\">Moonstone Midwives Birth Center\u003c/a> in Eureka, California. The cozy room where they met has kids’ toys in one corner, calm pastel-colored paintings on the wall, and feels more like a friend’s living room than a clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle listened to the baby’s heartbeat, took Booher’s blood pressure, and reviewed her blood test results. The midwife also asked about Booher’s stress levels, whether she’s exercising, and if she’s getting enough time to herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082734\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082734 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_08-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_08-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_08-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Midwife Laura Doyle measures expecting parent Leslie Booher’s fundal height during an appointment at Moonstone Midwives Birth Center in Eureka on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alexandra Hootnick for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“In prenatal care, what I am learning the most is who this person is,” Doyle said. “Yes, I look at blood work. Yes, I’m feeling babies and their growth. More importantly, I’m like: ‘Who are you? What are the relationships like in your life? Are you supported? Are you fearful?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She continued: “Every little story I get out of somebody is like telling me so much about how they are, and often, how their birth will be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across California, and across the U.S., there are now fewer places in which to give birth. Hospitals — facing rising costs, staff shortages and falling birth rates — are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2024/09/new-maternity-care-closures/\">closing\u003c/a> maternity wards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rural parts of the state are especially impacted: many women in these regions must travel for hours in labor to give birth, which can cause \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciline.org/public-health/obstetric-care-rural-america/\">serious complications\u003c/a> for moms and babies, including a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciline.org/public-health/obstetric-care-rural-america/\">higher risk\u003c/a> of pre-term births, c-sections and infant deaths. In California, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CFH/DMCAH/Pages/Health-Topics/Pregnancy-Related-Mortality.aspx\">maternal mortality rate\u003c/a> is higher in rural communities than in urban areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Humboldt and other northwestern parts of the state, two hospitals have closed their labor and delivery units in the past five years, leaving the entire county with just one hospital in which to give birth, Providence St. Joseph in Eureka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are coming from a couple hours [away] to have their babies,” Doyle said. “We only have one hospital that is doing deliveries for hours in every direction. It’s super stressful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abundant research has shown that midwifery care leads to \u003ca href=\"https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/the-value-of-midwives-during-prenatal-care-and-birth/\">better\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29944777/\">outcomes\u003c/a> for many of these challenges. As medically-trained healthcare professionals, midwives offer a different kind of care that can help meet this need. They can place IVs, do sutures, and give antibiotics — but they don’t administer epidurals or perform c-sections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Doing unmedicated birth means we’re relying on preventative care, so good nutrition, really good sleep, low stress and getting these babies in an optimal position,” Doyle said. “Unfortunately, standard medical practice doesn’t have time for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they offer women longer prenatal appointments, safe birth outside a hospital setting, and regular postpartum check-ups —a crucial time, because \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK592630/\">most pregnancy-related deaths\u003c/a> occur in the postpartum period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the vast majority of people can’t afford midwifery care. Midwives are not covered by most insurers, and incredibly low reimbursement rates mean that most midwives also can’t accept low-income clients on Medi-Cal. Holly Smith, a midwife and co-lead of \u003ca href=\"https://www.midwiferyaccessca.org/\">Midwifery Access California\u003c/a>, estimated that Medi-Cal reimburses around $3,000 per birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Midwives across the state have told us that the minimum they need is $7,000-$8,000 per birth, in order to sustain their practice,” said Smith, adding that the actual cost is around $14,000-$15,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle has found a way to serve low-income families in Humboldt, where the median household income is about 60% of the state median.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I always say, we’re all working hard to be poor,” Doyle said. “The stress is real for most people in this community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082736\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082736\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_16-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Midwife Laura Doyle at Moonstone Midwives Birth Center in Eureka on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alexandra Hootnick for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082737 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_29-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_29-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_29-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_29-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Midwife Laura Doyle (right) chats with expecting parent Kaylee Biane and her daughter Josie in the waiting room at Moonstone Midwives Birth Center in Eureka on May 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alexandra Hootnick for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After a year of meetings, Doyle was able to negotiate a better deal with the local Medi-Cal payer in Humboldt, Partnership Healthplan. This makes her birth center one of the very few in California able to accept low-income families. Around 75% of current Moonstone clients are on Medi-Cal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so frustrating to know that you can only have this if you can afford it,” said Doyle. “That is just wrong. Everybody should have access to good midwifery care. It’s really been the motivator of my career: people should be empowered in their birth experience no matter who they are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moonstone is located opposite Humboldt’s last remaining labor and delivery ward, at Providence St. Joseph, so that if a birthing person wants an epidural, needs surgery or the baby has to go to the NICU, the transfer is quick and easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve always been able to reach out to doctors and consult with them,” Doyle said, of the hospital staff. “We’ve built that rapport; they trust us and we trust them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community midwives, meaning those who don’t work in a hospital, attend around \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/MaternityCareAlmanac2023.pdf\">1% of births\u003c/a> in California — but \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ListeningMothersCAFullSurveyReport2018.pdf\">research\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/resource/advancing-midwifery-birth-equity-california/\">has shown\u003c/a> that more birthing people would like to have this kind of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some women seek midwifery care because they’ve had a difficult experience in the hospital. Claire Henderson gave birth at Mad River Community Hospital nearby in Arcata, before it closed its maternity ward in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They had three birthing rooms and at that time I think nine babies were being born, or were just born, so there was no room for me,” Henderson said. “But I was in full labor, so they stuck me in this little exam room we called a ‘closet,’ and that’s where I had my baby.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Henderson said she felt unheard by the hospital staff, who kept offering her medicine she didn’t want. Even though her baby was born healthy, she felt overwhelmed — so when she got pregnant a second time, she knew she wanted a midwife instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe in hospital births, but I knew I wanted a natural, physiological birth,” she said, “uninterrupted as much as possible, and to have everything calm down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Moonstone, Henderson gave birth in a birth suite with the lights dimmed low. “I was very present in my body and brain. The midwives checked the baby here and there, but I wasn’t on continuous monitoring — they left us alone a lot of the time. I was laughing in between contractions. It felt so natural.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even so, Henderson said: “Birth is really hard. It was still one of the most intense pains of my life. But I didn’t need anything for [it]. I just needed to feel secure and safe – and that was my team and the environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle said she gave birth to her first baby at home in a very remote area, supported by midwives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most impactful thing was their patience, and [the way they] really listened to me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle trained as a midwife herself and after many years of attending home births, she opened Moonstone with \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">co-owner Calista Young\u003c/span> in 2014. It’s still the county’s only birth center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we have a really unique culture in Humboldt,” she said. “I always call it the ‘707 culture.’ It’s like a different way of being, and a lot of it was driven by the outlaw culture of marijuana growing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doyle believes that mindset has influenced birthing people’s approach to their healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of these women are like, ‘No, I’m not doing that. I’m declining this, I’m declining that,” she said. “‘I want to do it this way.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082740\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082740\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_37-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The exterior of Moonstone Midwives Birth Center in Eureka on May 4, 2026. The midwives moved to this location in January of 2026 in order to be closer to Providence St. Joseph, the one remaining hospital with a labor and delivery unit in Humboldt county. \u003ccite>(Alexandra Hootnick for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On a typical day at the birth center, pregnant women will come in for their check-ups or group prenatal classes, while new moms can join postpartum support groups. Moonstone has two birth suites which resemble hotel rooms: comfy queen beds and large tubs for water birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Occasionally a mom will drop by with her newborn and a box of cookies or muffins for the midwives, as a little token of thanks. Doyle has lost count of how many babies she’s delivered, but estimated she’s passed the 1,000 mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can tell that’s what’s happened when I’m going through the grocery store,” she said, laughing, “because I see everybody and it’s hard to get anywhere, which is the sweet thing about being in a small town.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Clare Wiley is a Los Angeles based reporter covering women’s health. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was co-published and supported by the journalism nonprofit the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2F705e1645.streak-link.com%2FC1mohHHz81VdDMSRUwkUFhI3%2Fhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.economichardship.org%252F&data=05%7C02%7C%7C2df2b5528d9e466cdb2608de94ebfbf4%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C639111938429288639%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0NPfR6pRTwbXNJHuUbcNiAt3kkjrCO%2Bl7shM6fBqucc%3D&reserved=0\">\u003cem>Economic Hardship Reporting Project\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Canvas Hacked: Bay Area Colleges Disrupted By Global Cyberattack on Learning Platform",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082895/is-canvas-still-down-bay-area-schools-slowly-restore-access-after-global-hack\">May 8 update\u003c/a>:\u003c/em> Early Friday, Instructure said that it had resolved the issue and brought Canvas back online, though many affected schools were still conducting checks before restoring access for their students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original story below:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students at colleges across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> found themselves locked out of a widely used learning platform Thursday after hackers seized the data of an educational technology company and demanded a ransom to prevent its release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, San José State University, Stanford, City College of San Francisco, the Peralta Community College District and the San Mateo Union High School District were are among the schools reporting that Canvas was offline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students use the system to view and submit assignments, take part in class discussions, access syllabi and learning materials, and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hacker group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the cyberattack against Instructure, the Salt Lake City-based company behind Canvas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, the hackers said, adding that the data breach includes the private messages and other “personally identifiable information” of 275 million individuals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>University leaders were first made aware of a breach involving Canvas in the first few days of May, \u003ca href=\"https://lts.calstate.edu/csu-canvas-incident-reports\">according to the California State University system\u003c/a>, but the platform remained operational until Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067140\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067140\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00572_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00572_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00572_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00572_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cecil H Green Library at Stanford University in Palo Alto on December 10, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CSU officials said Tuesday that the Instructure CEO and chief security officer reported that “there is no evidence that passwords, Social Security numbers, financial information, or other highly sensitive data were compromised.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, the CSU said Canvas was down across all of its campuses and at the central chancellor’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This situation is fluid, and we are working with Instructure to determine the full scope of impact,” the CSU’s Canvas status page said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The University of California system directed all of its campuses to take Canvas offline, saying in an update Thursday that “Canvas access will not be restored until we are confident the system is secure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some students trying to access Canvas earlier reportedly saw a screen from ShinyHunters saying that Instructure had failed to pay their ransom. The hackers gave Instructure and any affected schools until May 12 to negotiate a settlement to prevent the data from being released.[aside postID=news_12082693 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/CellebriteGetty.jpg']Instructure did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company posted a status \u003ca href=\"https://status.instructure.com/\">update \u003c/a>Thursday afternoon saying that “Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test are currently in maintenance mode. We anticipate being back up soon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, the company’s status page reported a “cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor,” though it said that “Canvas was fully operational, and we are not seeing any ongoing unauthorized activity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At UC Berkeley, Canvas was not operational on Thursday, a university official wrote in an email to students. “This issue is impacting institutions and users globally, and we are actively monitoring the situation,” wrote Oliver O’Reilly, vice provost for undergraduate education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With finals around the corner, O’Reilly acknowledged the effect the outage could have on instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We recognize this significant disruption affects teaching and learning across campus. Students should await instructions from their instructors regarding temporary arrangements for submitting assignments and accessing course materials,” O’Reilly said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the Peralta Community College District warned students not to click on any links related to Canvas or the hacking message until they are notified that Canvas is operational.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hacker group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the cyberattack against Instructure, the Salt Lake City-based company behind Canvas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, the hackers said, adding that the data breach includes the private messages and other “personally identifiable information” of 275 million individuals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>University leaders were first made aware of a breach involving Canvas in the first few days of May, \u003ca href=\"https://lts.calstate.edu/csu-canvas-incident-reports\">according to the California State University system\u003c/a>, but the platform remained operational until Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067140\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067140\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00572_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00572_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00572_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251210-STANFORDFILE00572_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cecil H Green Library at Stanford University in Palo Alto on December 10, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CSU officials said Tuesday that the Instructure CEO and chief security officer reported that “there is no evidence that passwords, Social Security numbers, financial information, or other highly sensitive data were compromised.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, the CSU said Canvas was down across all of its campuses and at the central chancellor’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This situation is fluid, and we are working with Instructure to determine the full scope of impact,” the CSU’s Canvas status page said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The University of California system directed all of its campuses to take Canvas offline, saying in an update Thursday that “Canvas access will not be restored until we are confident the system is secure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some students trying to access Canvas earlier reportedly saw a screen from ShinyHunters saying that Instructure had failed to pay their ransom. The hackers gave Instructure and any affected schools until May 12 to negotiate a settlement to prevent the data from being released.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Instructure did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company posted a status \u003ca href=\"https://status.instructure.com/\">update \u003c/a>Thursday afternoon saying that “Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test are currently in maintenance mode. We anticipate being back up soon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, the company’s status page reported a “cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor,” though it said that “Canvas was fully operational, and we are not seeing any ongoing unauthorized activity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At UC Berkeley, Canvas was not operational on Thursday, a university official wrote in an email to students. “This issue is impacting institutions and users globally, and we are actively monitoring the situation,” wrote Oliver O’Reilly, vice provost for undergraduate education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With finals around the corner, O’Reilly acknowledged the effect the outage could have on instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We recognize this significant disruption affects teaching and learning across campus. Students should await instructions from their instructors regarding temporary arrangements for submitting assignments and accessing course materials,” O’Reilly said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the Peralta Community College District warned students not to click on any links related to Canvas or the hacking message until they are notified that Canvas is operational.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "cheap-camping-near-bay-area-checklist-gear-cookware-tent-rental-sleeping-bag-pad",
"title": "How Cheaply Can You Camp in the Bay Area — Without Sacrificing Comfort?",
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"headTitle": "How Cheaply Can You Camp in the Bay Area — Without Sacrificing Comfort? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cem>How We Get By\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cem>full series here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/travel/airfare-bag-fees-fuel-surcharges.html\">cost of travel\u003c/a> continues to skyrocket, with gas and flight prices rising amid the Iran war, even more Californians than usual might be considering camping as a more achievable way to take a vacation this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as many people discover, the costs of camping can quickly rack up. And once you’ve bought your equipment, acquired the extras and secured those endless groceries, a getaway that originally seemed like the cheapest option can suddenly seem oddly expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it turns out, it doesn’t have to be. In my role as KQED’s Outdoor Reporter, I talked to local experts and set out to test the cheapest camping trip that would still be fun — and comfortable — right here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The quest for cheap camping\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>My aim: To keep costs under $200 — what a person might spend for dinner and a night at a hotel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To run this experiment, I had to set some parameters:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>I couldn’t use the camping gear I already owned\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Anything I brought would have to be something your average person might have at home\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Everything else I would have to borrow, rent or buy as affordably as possible\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079258\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079258\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_005_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_005_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_005_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_005_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of Lake Chabot is seen from Anthony Chabot Family Campground, which sits about 1.5 miles above the lake, on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I also brought my partner with me, because camping with others is nearly always more fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would take some creativity, but I did it — and for far less than $200. All told, my weekend adventure came in at around $180.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading what I learned about camping as cheaply as possible near the Bay Area, and the tips you can use to make your next weekend away as budget-friendly as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#WheretofindfreecampsitesneartheBayArea\">Where to find free campsites near the Bay Area\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#Howtokeepcostsdownwhenrentingcampingequipment\">How to keep costs down when renting camping equipment\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#Wheretobuyorthriftcheapercampingsupplies\">Where to buy (or thrift) cheaper camping supplies\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>Try reserving a cheaper ‘walk-in’ campsite …\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For my night away, I spent $33 on \u003ca href=\"https://campnab.com/camping-glossary/walk-in-campsite\">a walk-in campsite \u003c/a>— that is, a campsite you have to walk a little way to after parking, as opposed to one where you can pop your tent right next to your vehicle. These are not to be confused with walk-\u003cem>up\u003c/em> campsites, which are “first-come, first-served” and can’t be reserved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I chose a walk-in site because these are usually a few dollars cheaper than drive-up sites. (I even called the reservation office to see if making the $25 campsite reservation by phone could waive the $8 service fee — alas, it did not.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079262\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079262\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_018_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_018_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_018_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_018_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Used and borrowed coolers hold food at a campsite at Anthony Chabot Family Campground on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. Camper Ernesto Carmona said reusing gear is a key way to keep camping affordable. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For the cost of a 5-minute walk with all your stuff, a walk-in site gives you a much more secluded, immersive camping experience. Still, first-time campers may use a regular drive-in site to keep their car close by. Regardless of what you decide, most Bay Area campsites will be in the $30-$50 range per night, including the service fee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I chose the East Bay’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/anthony-chabot/camping\">Anthony Chabot Campground\u003c/a> because of its beginner-friendly nature, and the short 35-minute drive from downtown Oakland (even closer if you live in Castro Valley or Hayward). Not only did this hillside spot have plenty of available reservations, but it’s beautiful, too: nestled within eucalyptus trees with a view of scenic Lake Chabot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it has \u003ca href=\"https://www.alltrails.com/parks/us/california/anthony-chabot-regional-park--2\">hiking trails for all levels\u003c/a> — for a relaxed stroll at sunset, we took the easy, mostly flat Towhee Trail, connecting a loop around the campground above Lake Chabot.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"WheretofindfreecampsitesneartheBayArea\">\u003c/a>… or choose a dispersed site for even cheaper (or free) camping\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Want to keep your costs even lower? You can always “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11920867/how-to-find-free-camping-in-californias-national-forests\">dispersed camp\u003c/a>” in national forests or other federal land — meaning you’ll pitch your tent outside a developed campground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not only is dispersed camping far cheaper — it’s usually free, although certain forests may require a pass that costs a few dollars — it tends to be quieter and doesn’t usually require a permit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dispersed camping “kind of brings the benefit of backpacking” while still having your car, said Brian Low, general manager at Club Urban Diversion, a Bay Area-based social club that organizes outdoor trips. “You get into the backcountry away from other people and have a really tranquil experience in the wilderness, but you have the benefit of being able to drive right up to your site and camp there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082551\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082551\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/HikingJosh.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/HikingJosh.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/HikingJosh-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/HikingJosh-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joshua Dillen hikes the Towhee Trail, which circles Anthony Chabot Campground, on April 5, 2026. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But there is a catch: Most of those campsites don’t have any facilities at all, like toilets or showers, and may not be properly marked on maps. Make sure you know you’re camping legally and not on private property beforehand (apps like \u003ca href=\"https://www.gaiagps.com/\">Gaia GPS\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.onxmaps.com/backcountry/app?utm_source=googlesearch&utm_medium=paid_search&utm_campaign=PERF_BC_US_NATION_GOOGLE-AC_WEB_ACQ_BRAND_07-23-2025&https://www.onxmaps.com/backcountry/blog/fatmap-alternative&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22520966125&gbraid=0AAAAABs4zQ6QJkac9R-vd5C9tuG0WzE20&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkrzPBhCqARIsAJN460lTK-0LmtCQmpc7Tgsli9ZcuHAFAvNMLcLgGUd-7OSarKtVbhfCukwaAvSyEALw_wcB\">onX Backcountry\u003c/a> can help you navigate).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also call the local land management office where you’re trying to camp, usually the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/r05/offices\">U.S. Forest Service\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://www.blm.gov/office/central-california-district-office\">Bureau of Land Management\u003c/a>, and ask a ranger or staff member where to camp safely and legally nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Make sure you ask about \u003ca href=\"https://www.blm.gov/programs/fire/regional-info/california/fire-restrictions\">any local fire restrictions\u003c/a> or other regulations. You’ll probably also need a \u003ca href=\"http://readyforwildfire.org/permits/campfire-permit/\">California Campfire Permit\u003c/a>, which is free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082554\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082554\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TentView.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TentView.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TentView-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TentView-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tent is set up in the corner of a campsite at Anthony Chabot Campground on April 5, 2026. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dispersed camping also means you’ll have to:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Bring water in your car (or a\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12040242/start-backpacking-trails-bay-area-near-me-permits#backpacking-gear\"> water filter\u003c/a>) for the entire weekend\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Expect to pack out your trash (yes, including toilet paper)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Follow other\u003ca href=\"https://lnt.org/why/7-principles/\"> Leave No Trace principles\u003c/a> like camping away from streams …\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>… and burying your poop at least 6 inches deep in the ground.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>“It does require a little bit more know-how and skill to camp in those places,” Low said. “So it’s not always the most beginner-friendly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, while dispersed camping will keep reservation costs way down, saving this money might not be worth the stress if you’re more of a beginner camper.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Know the essentials you absolutely \u003cem>shouldn’t \u003c/em>cut corners on\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Namely, your “big three”: Your tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad. These are the essential pieces of gear you 100% need to safely enjoy a night out camping, even if the weather forecast is perfect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you go out and you can’t sleep because you’re freezing cold and you’re shivering all night, and then you wake up, tired and groggy and grumpy, you’re just not going to have fun the next day,” Low said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides a warm, comfortable sleep setup, you don’t technically \u003cem>need \u003c/em>anything else to camp. But there are some nice-to-haves, and you can borrow, rent or find them at local thrift stores. Which brings us to …\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Borrow from your community (before you invest in your own costly gear)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Camping with friends or family is the easiest way to keep costs down. You can carpool, share tents and other gear — and you’ll probably have more fun, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also borrow extra equipment from that one friend who has too much or another who can’t make the trip this time. (Full disclosure: I am usually that one friend — I have lent my gear to pretty much anyone who asked. As far as I’m concerned, the more use my gear gets, the better.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Lean on your community, friends, family, acquaintances – see if there’s stuff that you can borrow,” Low said. “And then stuff you can’t borrow, see if you can rent it. And \u003cem>then \u003c/em>stuff you can’t rent, consider buying it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079264\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079264\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_025_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_025_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_025_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_025_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marcus Johnson, of Hayward, with his family at Anthony Chabot Family Campground on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, CA. Bringing used gear and choosing local campsites helps keep trips affordable, according to Mr Johnson. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Your local library may also offer \u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/01/free-hiking-gear-bay-area-libraries/\">rentals for hiking gear\u003c/a> that you can check out the way you would a book — all for free. You can also reserve and check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11910495/how-to-get-free-entry-to-california-state-parks-with-your-library-card\">free state parks passes\u003c/a> from your library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re associated with a university, check whether your school has an \u003ca href=\"https://chaosberkeley.org/gear-shed/\">outdoors club\u003c/a>, as these organizations often rent gear for cheap to students and faculty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, I borrowed a lawn chair from my roommate. It’s been sitting in our house for a while, and was the perfect way to relax around the campfire — so who cares if it wasn’t an actual camping chair?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Howtokeepcostsdownwhenrentingcampingequipment\">\u003c/a>How to affordably rent your most crucial gear\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you’re planning on making camping a habit, you may consider buying your “big three” — tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad — but you’ll want to buy it from a reputable outdoors gear store, advised Low. When you buy from sellers on sites like Amazon, you run the risk of receiving dupes or low-quality gear that hasn’t been field-tested and may not hold up in bad weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once you buy it, good gear can last a lifetime. Case in point: I have used my sleeping bag and pad for hundreds of nights outdoors. And you can trust the recommendations of many outfitters’ salespeople, as they generally don’t work on commission, Low said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079255\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079255\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_001_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_001_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_001_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_001_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign marks the entrance to Anthony Chabot Regional Park at Marciel Gate along Redwood Road on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But what if you’re a more casual camper who’s only planning on sleeping in a tent for a weekend or two per year? In this instance, you don’t have to drop hundreds of dollars on new gear — and if you can’t borrow it as above, you can plan to rent it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For my trip, I rented the big three from Sports Basement in San Francisco, where employees Neil Barbo and Erica Huerta helped me pick up my rentals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sportsbasement.com/pages/camping-rental-rates\">You can make reservations\u003c/a> for gear rentals online ahead of time, but in this case, I just walked in to find everything I needed right there in the store.[aside postID=news_12035515 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-1366211065_qed-1020x681.jpg']As Barbo and Huerta showed me, places like Sports Basement offer bundled \u003ca href=\"https://www.sportsbasement.com/products/sbrents-2-person-car-camping-package-with-duo-sleeping-options\">rental packages\u003c/a> for people who want to go all in. But most campers don’t need \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>in the package, Barbo said — so if keeping costs low is your priority, forget the bundles and just pick and choose what you need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cost of my setup for the weekend was $108 for a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad and camping stove. For the stove, I also had to buy fuel — I bought a refillable one, but most single-use cans go for around $10 (and may be found even cheaper at hardware stores).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hadn’t used the kind of stove I was renting before, so Barbo offered me a demonstration right there in the shop to ensure I’d be able to make dinner when I got to Chabot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You shouldn’t be afraid of asking rental staff how to use an item, stressed Barbo, because the worst case scenario is spending money to rent something you then can’t figure out how to use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another upside of renting, the pair said, is being able to test out different types of gear to see what you do and don’t like before committing to any one brand or item.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can kind of figure out, ‘is camping for you?’” Huerta said. “‘Is maybe backpacking more your style?’ There’s different ways to camp, different ways to backpack, and it’s a good way to try out different variations and see what makes you happiest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Wheretobuyorthriftcheapercampingsupplies\">\u003c/a>Where to buy or thrift the rest of your camping gear affordably\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you know you want to make camping a habit but don’t want to shell out just yet, online used markets like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace are great options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also visit your local thrift store, like Goodwill. For my trip, I went to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.communitythriftsf.org/\">Community Thrift Store\u003c/a> in the Mission and picked up a small cooler for $3, so I wouldn’t need that entire Sports Basement camping package. For another $3, I also found some solar-powered string lights to hang on my tent at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082552\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082552\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Flashlights.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Flashlights.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Flashlights-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Flashlights-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A bin at the Community Thrift Store in San Francisco’s Mission District holds flashlights for sale. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other items I saw at the thrift store that I already owned but would be great to bring camping were:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>A headlamp and flashlight\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Tons of cookware, utensils, water bottles and Tupperware\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Warm beanies, gloves and sun hats\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Hiking boots and sandals\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Lawn toys like frisbees, inflatable footballs and bouncy balls\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Art supplies like colored pencils and paints\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Board games and books galore\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Once I arrived at Chabot, I got chatting to fellow camper Ernesto Carmona, who was there with his family. Lots of their gear was borrowed, said Carmona, but the rest was affordably acquired from places like Costco, Walmart and Target. “As simple as possible is the best way to go,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first time we ever camped, we tried to bring a bunch of fancy stuff, and we were more worried about getting it damaged than enjoying the camping trip,” Carmona said. Instead, he advised bringing things you \u003cem>won’t \u003c/em>miss if they get damaged — or stressed out if they get dirty — and particularly suggested a cheap cooler.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You make better memories that way,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082556\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082556 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GamesThrift.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GamesThrift.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GamesThrift-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GamesThrift-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Local thrift stores, including the Community Thrift Store in San Francisco’s Mission District, sell lots of toys and board games that you can bring camping. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Carmona even got four or five giant boxes of firewood from Foodmax. He said big box stores fit his needs better than expensive outdoors ones, finding Bass Pro Shop in particular “too purpose-intended.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you’re worried about staying warm at night around the campfire or in your tent, Sports Basement’s Huerta suggested you head to your local hardware store to pick up \u003ca href=\"https://www.backpacker.com/survival/survival-skills/emergency-shelters/how-and-when-hikers-should-use-space-blankets-and-survival-blankets/\">a space blanket\u003c/a> — those shiny Mylar emergency blankets used to prevent hypothermia — for just a few dollars. If you put one of these blankets down on your tent floor under your sleeping pad, it will reflect your body heat back up to you at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s such a simple thing and has been such a great saver for a good night of sleep,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I happened to have one already at home, leftover from a race I participated in years ago, and can attest: wearing mine around the campfire at night kept me extra toasty.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>You almost certainly don’t need to buy or rent camping clothes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s no need to make this part complicated: You probably already have the right clothes for camping. So just bring whatever is comfortable and that you’re not afraid to get dirty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re planning on hiking, bring gear for that, including sun protection and walking or hiking shoes. Unless you’re planning a major hike, you probably don’t need hiking boots, as regular tennis shoes will perform just fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082553\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082553\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Sunset.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Sunset.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Sunset-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Sunset-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dusk falls on a campground at Anthony Chabot Regional Park on April 5, 2026. Campers here thrifted string lights to deck out their tent. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Always check the weather ahead of time — you might need a rain jacket. And be sure to bring more layers for nighttime, as temperatures in the Bay Area can drop dramatically when the sun goes down. A pair of gloves and a beanie go a long way – and can be easily thrifted, if you need to pick some up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Really \u003c/em>worried about being warm at night? Bring a hard-sided Nalgene bottle, if you own one, and fill it with boiling water before bed to act as a space heater in your sleeping bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Camp food can be as cheap as you’d like\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For this trip, I spent just $15 at the grocery store for food for two, supplemented by a few pantry items from home (more on that below) — and found we had plenty of food to enjoy during our stay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We purchased buns, hot dogs and grilled zucchini for dinner and brought instant oatmeal packets and instant coffee from home for breakfast to keep things cheap and easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082559\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082559\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Cooking.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Cooking.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Cooking-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Cooking-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Campers at Anthony Chabot Regional Park cook hot dogs on a two-burner camping stove rented at Sports Basement on April 5, 2026. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>You could easily pack more involved fare, since preparing a somewhat time-consuming meal can be an intrinsic part of the fun when camping. But if you don’t care about making a big meal, some of my go-to cheap and easy camping meals are instant ramen, instant mashed potatoes and boxed mac and cheese — which are all around a dollar at stores like Grocery Outlet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you’re not dead set on making s’mores, a simple mug of hot chocolate and tea can be a more budget-friendly campfire treat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My partner and I also purchased a $10 bundle of wood at the campground to make our campfire. For extra thriftiness, we used our paper grocery bag as a firestarter.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Remember: You can bring a ton of stuff from home\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While I prefer having a headlamp in a campsite, you can always bring an emergency flashlight from home or use your phone as a flashlight. Just remember, you may not be able to charge it, so airplane mode might be your best bet this trip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you can skip the fancy camping cookware. While I rented a Coleman-style camping stove from Sports Basement, I brought the pots and pans we used for meals right from my kitchen, as well as mugs, tongs for cooking and utensils, along with that extra food already in our pantry. I also brought a trash bag, dish soap and a sponge from home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079256\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12079256 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_003_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_003_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_003_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_003_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firewood and charcoal are sold at Anthony Chabot Family Campground on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Low also suggested items like takeout containers or Tupperware can be perfect to eat out of or help you prep your food. I took his advice: On my trip, my main eating bowl was a plastic tupperware that I’ve had forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Almost everybody usually has something like that at home,” he said. “So you don’t have to go out and buy everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Money left over? Don’t sleep on the fun optional extras\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For entertainment around camp, bring a book you have lying around but haven’t gotten to, a deck of cards, a board game or even a frisbee. Sports Basement offers hammocks to rent as well. If you’re by a lake, you can even bring a floaty and a small speaker to lean into the beach vibes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of Low’s favorite camp games is bocce ball, he said. He even found a set with LEDs so he can play at night with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079263\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079263\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_021_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_021_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_021_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_021_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elena Carmona, 5, holds a toy container with a darkling beetle and a kite at Anthony Chabot Family Campground on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s not serious,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if the ground is perfectly level. We’ve played it on a hill before, and it just kind of makes it that much more fun when all the balls roll out there and then roll back towards you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Low has also had friends bring musical instruments. On my trip, I brought art supplies and a board game from home to pass the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re car camping, the world is your oyster,” Low said. “If it fits in the car and you think it’s gonna improve your experience and be kind of fun out there, then bring it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cem>How We Get By\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cem>full series here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/travel/airfare-bag-fees-fuel-surcharges.html\">cost of travel\u003c/a> continues to skyrocket, with gas and flight prices rising amid the Iran war, even more Californians than usual might be considering camping as a more achievable way to take a vacation this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as many people discover, the costs of camping can quickly rack up. And once you’ve bought your equipment, acquired the extras and secured those endless groceries, a getaway that originally seemed like the cheapest option can suddenly seem oddly expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it turns out, it doesn’t have to be. In my role as KQED’s Outdoor Reporter, I talked to local experts and set out to test the cheapest camping trip that would still be fun — and comfortable — right here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The quest for cheap camping\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>My aim: To keep costs under $200 — what a person might spend for dinner and a night at a hotel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To run this experiment, I had to set some parameters:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>I couldn’t use the camping gear I already owned\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Anything I brought would have to be something your average person might have at home\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Everything else I would have to borrow, rent or buy as affordably as possible\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079258\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079258\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_005_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_005_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_005_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_005_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of Lake Chabot is seen from Anthony Chabot Family Campground, which sits about 1.5 miles above the lake, on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I also brought my partner with me, because camping with others is nearly always more fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would take some creativity, but I did it — and for far less than $200. All told, my weekend adventure came in at around $180.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading what I learned about camping as cheaply as possible near the Bay Area, and the tips you can use to make your next weekend away as budget-friendly as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#WheretofindfreecampsitesneartheBayArea\">Where to find free campsites near the Bay Area\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#Howtokeepcostsdownwhenrentingcampingequipment\">How to keep costs down when renting camping equipment\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#Wheretobuyorthriftcheapercampingsupplies\">Where to buy (or thrift) cheaper camping supplies\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>Try reserving a cheaper ‘walk-in’ campsite …\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For my night away, I spent $33 on \u003ca href=\"https://campnab.com/camping-glossary/walk-in-campsite\">a walk-in campsite \u003c/a>— that is, a campsite you have to walk a little way to after parking, as opposed to one where you can pop your tent right next to your vehicle. These are not to be confused with walk-\u003cem>up\u003c/em> campsites, which are “first-come, first-served” and can’t be reserved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I chose a walk-in site because these are usually a few dollars cheaper than drive-up sites. (I even called the reservation office to see if making the $25 campsite reservation by phone could waive the $8 service fee — alas, it did not.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079262\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079262\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_018_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_018_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_018_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_018_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Used and borrowed coolers hold food at a campsite at Anthony Chabot Family Campground on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. Camper Ernesto Carmona said reusing gear is a key way to keep camping affordable. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For the cost of a 5-minute walk with all your stuff, a walk-in site gives you a much more secluded, immersive camping experience. Still, first-time campers may use a regular drive-in site to keep their car close by. Regardless of what you decide, most Bay Area campsites will be in the $30-$50 range per night, including the service fee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I chose the East Bay’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/anthony-chabot/camping\">Anthony Chabot Campground\u003c/a> because of its beginner-friendly nature, and the short 35-minute drive from downtown Oakland (even closer if you live in Castro Valley or Hayward). Not only did this hillside spot have plenty of available reservations, but it’s beautiful, too: nestled within eucalyptus trees with a view of scenic Lake Chabot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it has \u003ca href=\"https://www.alltrails.com/parks/us/california/anthony-chabot-regional-park--2\">hiking trails for all levels\u003c/a> — for a relaxed stroll at sunset, we took the easy, mostly flat Towhee Trail, connecting a loop around the campground above Lake Chabot.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"WheretofindfreecampsitesneartheBayArea\">\u003c/a>… or choose a dispersed site for even cheaper (or free) camping\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Want to keep your costs even lower? You can always “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11920867/how-to-find-free-camping-in-californias-national-forests\">dispersed camp\u003c/a>” in national forests or other federal land — meaning you’ll pitch your tent outside a developed campground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not only is dispersed camping far cheaper — it’s usually free, although certain forests may require a pass that costs a few dollars — it tends to be quieter and doesn’t usually require a permit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dispersed camping “kind of brings the benefit of backpacking” while still having your car, said Brian Low, general manager at Club Urban Diversion, a Bay Area-based social club that organizes outdoor trips. “You get into the backcountry away from other people and have a really tranquil experience in the wilderness, but you have the benefit of being able to drive right up to your site and camp there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082551\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082551\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/HikingJosh.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/HikingJosh.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/HikingJosh-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/HikingJosh-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joshua Dillen hikes the Towhee Trail, which circles Anthony Chabot Campground, on April 5, 2026. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But there is a catch: Most of those campsites don’t have any facilities at all, like toilets or showers, and may not be properly marked on maps. Make sure you know you’re camping legally and not on private property beforehand (apps like \u003ca href=\"https://www.gaiagps.com/\">Gaia GPS\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.onxmaps.com/backcountry/app?utm_source=googlesearch&utm_medium=paid_search&utm_campaign=PERF_BC_US_NATION_GOOGLE-AC_WEB_ACQ_BRAND_07-23-2025&https://www.onxmaps.com/backcountry/blog/fatmap-alternative&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22520966125&gbraid=0AAAAABs4zQ6QJkac9R-vd5C9tuG0WzE20&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkrzPBhCqARIsAJN460lTK-0LmtCQmpc7Tgsli9ZcuHAFAvNMLcLgGUd-7OSarKtVbhfCukwaAvSyEALw_wcB\">onX Backcountry\u003c/a> can help you navigate).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also call the local land management office where you’re trying to camp, usually the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/r05/offices\">U.S. Forest Service\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://www.blm.gov/office/central-california-district-office\">Bureau of Land Management\u003c/a>, and ask a ranger or staff member where to camp safely and legally nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Make sure you ask about \u003ca href=\"https://www.blm.gov/programs/fire/regional-info/california/fire-restrictions\">any local fire restrictions\u003c/a> or other regulations. You’ll probably also need a \u003ca href=\"http://readyforwildfire.org/permits/campfire-permit/\">California Campfire Permit\u003c/a>, which is free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082554\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082554\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TentView.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TentView.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TentView-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TentView-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tent is set up in the corner of a campsite at Anthony Chabot Campground on April 5, 2026. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dispersed camping also means you’ll have to:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Bring water in your car (or a\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12040242/start-backpacking-trails-bay-area-near-me-permits#backpacking-gear\"> water filter\u003c/a>) for the entire weekend\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Expect to pack out your trash (yes, including toilet paper)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Follow other\u003ca href=\"https://lnt.org/why/7-principles/\"> Leave No Trace principles\u003c/a> like camping away from streams …\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>… and burying your poop at least 6 inches deep in the ground.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>“It does require a little bit more know-how and skill to camp in those places,” Low said. “So it’s not always the most beginner-friendly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, while dispersed camping will keep reservation costs way down, saving this money might not be worth the stress if you’re more of a beginner camper.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Know the essentials you absolutely \u003cem>shouldn’t \u003c/em>cut corners on\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Namely, your “big three”: Your tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad. These are the essential pieces of gear you 100% need to safely enjoy a night out camping, even if the weather forecast is perfect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you go out and you can’t sleep because you’re freezing cold and you’re shivering all night, and then you wake up, tired and groggy and grumpy, you’re just not going to have fun the next day,” Low said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides a warm, comfortable sleep setup, you don’t technically \u003cem>need \u003c/em>anything else to camp. But there are some nice-to-haves, and you can borrow, rent or find them at local thrift stores. Which brings us to …\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Borrow from your community (before you invest in your own costly gear)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Camping with friends or family is the easiest way to keep costs down. You can carpool, share tents and other gear — and you’ll probably have more fun, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also borrow extra equipment from that one friend who has too much or another who can’t make the trip this time. (Full disclosure: I am usually that one friend — I have lent my gear to pretty much anyone who asked. As far as I’m concerned, the more use my gear gets, the better.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Lean on your community, friends, family, acquaintances – see if there’s stuff that you can borrow,” Low said. “And then stuff you can’t borrow, see if you can rent it. And \u003cem>then \u003c/em>stuff you can’t rent, consider buying it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079264\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079264\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_025_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_025_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_025_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_025_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marcus Johnson, of Hayward, with his family at Anthony Chabot Family Campground on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, CA. Bringing used gear and choosing local campsites helps keep trips affordable, according to Mr Johnson. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Your local library may also offer \u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/01/free-hiking-gear-bay-area-libraries/\">rentals for hiking gear\u003c/a> that you can check out the way you would a book — all for free. You can also reserve and check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11910495/how-to-get-free-entry-to-california-state-parks-with-your-library-card\">free state parks passes\u003c/a> from your library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re associated with a university, check whether your school has an \u003ca href=\"https://chaosberkeley.org/gear-shed/\">outdoors club\u003c/a>, as these organizations often rent gear for cheap to students and faculty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, I borrowed a lawn chair from my roommate. It’s been sitting in our house for a while, and was the perfect way to relax around the campfire — so who cares if it wasn’t an actual camping chair?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Howtokeepcostsdownwhenrentingcampingequipment\">\u003c/a>How to affordably rent your most crucial gear\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you’re planning on making camping a habit, you may consider buying your “big three” — tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad — but you’ll want to buy it from a reputable outdoors gear store, advised Low. When you buy from sellers on sites like Amazon, you run the risk of receiving dupes or low-quality gear that hasn’t been field-tested and may not hold up in bad weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once you buy it, good gear can last a lifetime. Case in point: I have used my sleeping bag and pad for hundreds of nights outdoors. And you can trust the recommendations of many outfitters’ salespeople, as they generally don’t work on commission, Low said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079255\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079255\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_001_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_001_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_001_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_001_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign marks the entrance to Anthony Chabot Regional Park at Marciel Gate along Redwood Road on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But what if you’re a more casual camper who’s only planning on sleeping in a tent for a weekend or two per year? In this instance, you don’t have to drop hundreds of dollars on new gear — and if you can’t borrow it as above, you can plan to rent it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For my trip, I rented the big three from Sports Basement in San Francisco, where employees Neil Barbo and Erica Huerta helped me pick up my rentals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sportsbasement.com/pages/camping-rental-rates\">You can make reservations\u003c/a> for gear rentals online ahead of time, but in this case, I just walked in to find everything I needed right there in the store.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>As Barbo and Huerta showed me, places like Sports Basement offer bundled \u003ca href=\"https://www.sportsbasement.com/products/sbrents-2-person-car-camping-package-with-duo-sleeping-options\">rental packages\u003c/a> for people who want to go all in. But most campers don’t need \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>in the package, Barbo said — so if keeping costs low is your priority, forget the bundles and just pick and choose what you need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cost of my setup for the weekend was $108 for a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad and camping stove. For the stove, I also had to buy fuel — I bought a refillable one, but most single-use cans go for around $10 (and may be found even cheaper at hardware stores).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hadn’t used the kind of stove I was renting before, so Barbo offered me a demonstration right there in the shop to ensure I’d be able to make dinner when I got to Chabot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You shouldn’t be afraid of asking rental staff how to use an item, stressed Barbo, because the worst case scenario is spending money to rent something you then can’t figure out how to use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another upside of renting, the pair said, is being able to test out different types of gear to see what you do and don’t like before committing to any one brand or item.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can kind of figure out, ‘is camping for you?’” Huerta said. “‘Is maybe backpacking more your style?’ There’s different ways to camp, different ways to backpack, and it’s a good way to try out different variations and see what makes you happiest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Wheretobuyorthriftcheapercampingsupplies\">\u003c/a>Where to buy or thrift the rest of your camping gear affordably\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If you know you want to make camping a habit but don’t want to shell out just yet, online used markets like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace are great options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also visit your local thrift store, like Goodwill. For my trip, I went to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.communitythriftsf.org/\">Community Thrift Store\u003c/a> in the Mission and picked up a small cooler for $3, so I wouldn’t need that entire Sports Basement camping package. For another $3, I also found some solar-powered string lights to hang on my tent at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082552\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082552\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Flashlights.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Flashlights.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Flashlights-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Flashlights-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A bin at the Community Thrift Store in San Francisco’s Mission District holds flashlights for sale. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other items I saw at the thrift store that I already owned but would be great to bring camping were:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>A headlamp and flashlight\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Tons of cookware, utensils, water bottles and Tupperware\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Warm beanies, gloves and sun hats\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Hiking boots and sandals\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Lawn toys like frisbees, inflatable footballs and bouncy balls\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Art supplies like colored pencils and paints\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Board games and books galore\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Once I arrived at Chabot, I got chatting to fellow camper Ernesto Carmona, who was there with his family. Lots of their gear was borrowed, said Carmona, but the rest was affordably acquired from places like Costco, Walmart and Target. “As simple as possible is the best way to go,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first time we ever camped, we tried to bring a bunch of fancy stuff, and we were more worried about getting it damaged than enjoying the camping trip,” Carmona said. Instead, he advised bringing things you \u003cem>won’t \u003c/em>miss if they get damaged — or stressed out if they get dirty — and particularly suggested a cheap cooler.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You make better memories that way,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082556\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12082556 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GamesThrift.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GamesThrift.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GamesThrift-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/GamesThrift-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Local thrift stores, including the Community Thrift Store in San Francisco’s Mission District, sell lots of toys and board games that you can bring camping. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Carmona even got four or five giant boxes of firewood from Foodmax. He said big box stores fit his needs better than expensive outdoors ones, finding Bass Pro Shop in particular “too purpose-intended.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you’re worried about staying warm at night around the campfire or in your tent, Sports Basement’s Huerta suggested you head to your local hardware store to pick up \u003ca href=\"https://www.backpacker.com/survival/survival-skills/emergency-shelters/how-and-when-hikers-should-use-space-blankets-and-survival-blankets/\">a space blanket\u003c/a> — those shiny Mylar emergency blankets used to prevent hypothermia — for just a few dollars. If you put one of these blankets down on your tent floor under your sleeping pad, it will reflect your body heat back up to you at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s such a simple thing and has been such a great saver for a good night of sleep,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I happened to have one already at home, leftover from a race I participated in years ago, and can attest: wearing mine around the campfire at night kept me extra toasty.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>You almost certainly don’t need to buy or rent camping clothes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There’s no need to make this part complicated: You probably already have the right clothes for camping. So just bring whatever is comfortable and that you’re not afraid to get dirty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re planning on hiking, bring gear for that, including sun protection and walking or hiking shoes. Unless you’re planning a major hike, you probably don’t need hiking boots, as regular tennis shoes will perform just fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082553\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082553\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Sunset.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Sunset.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Sunset-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Sunset-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dusk falls on a campground at Anthony Chabot Regional Park on April 5, 2026. Campers here thrifted string lights to deck out their tent. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Always check the weather ahead of time — you might need a rain jacket. And be sure to bring more layers for nighttime, as temperatures in the Bay Area can drop dramatically when the sun goes down. A pair of gloves and a beanie go a long way – and can be easily thrifted, if you need to pick some up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Really \u003c/em>worried about being warm at night? Bring a hard-sided Nalgene bottle, if you own one, and fill it with boiling water before bed to act as a space heater in your sleeping bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Camp food can be as cheap as you’d like\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For this trip, I spent just $15 at the grocery store for food for two, supplemented by a few pantry items from home (more on that below) — and found we had plenty of food to enjoy during our stay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We purchased buns, hot dogs and grilled zucchini for dinner and brought instant oatmeal packets and instant coffee from home for breakfast to keep things cheap and easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082559\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082559\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Cooking.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Cooking.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Cooking-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/Cooking-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Campers at Anthony Chabot Regional Park cook hot dogs on a two-burner camping stove rented at Sports Basement on April 5, 2026. \u003ccite>(Sarah Wright/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>You could easily pack more involved fare, since preparing a somewhat time-consuming meal can be an intrinsic part of the fun when camping. But if you don’t care about making a big meal, some of my go-to cheap and easy camping meals are instant ramen, instant mashed potatoes and boxed mac and cheese — which are all around a dollar at stores like Grocery Outlet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you’re not dead set on making s’mores, a simple mug of hot chocolate and tea can be a more budget-friendly campfire treat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My partner and I also purchased a $10 bundle of wood at the campground to make our campfire. For extra thriftiness, we used our paper grocery bag as a firestarter.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Remember: You can bring a ton of stuff from home\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While I prefer having a headlamp in a campsite, you can always bring an emergency flashlight from home or use your phone as a flashlight. Just remember, you may not be able to charge it, so airplane mode might be your best bet this trip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you can skip the fancy camping cookware. While I rented a Coleman-style camping stove from Sports Basement, I brought the pots and pans we used for meals right from my kitchen, as well as mugs, tongs for cooking and utensils, along with that extra food already in our pantry. I also brought a trash bag, dish soap and a sponge from home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079256\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12079256 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_003_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_003_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_003_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_003_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firewood and charcoal are sold at Anthony Chabot Family Campground on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Low also suggested items like takeout containers or Tupperware can be perfect to eat out of or help you prep your food. I took his advice: On my trip, my main eating bowl was a plastic tupperware that I’ve had forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Almost everybody usually has something like that at home,” he said. “So you don’t have to go out and buy everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Money left over? Don’t sleep on the fun optional extras\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For entertainment around camp, bring a book you have lying around but haven’t gotten to, a deck of cards, a board game or even a frisbee. Sports Basement offers hammocks to rent as well. If you’re by a lake, you can even bring a floaty and a small speaker to lean into the beach vibes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of Low’s favorite camp games is bocce ball, he said. He even found a set with LEDs so he can play at night with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079263\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079263\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_021_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_021_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_021_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040526CheapCamping_GH_021_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elena Carmona, 5, holds a toy container with a darkling beetle and a kite at Anthony Chabot Family Campground on April 5, 2026, in Castro Valley, California. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s not serious,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if the ground is perfectly level. We’ve played it on a hill before, and it just kind of makes it that much more fun when all the balls roll out there and then roll back towards you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Low has also had friends bring musical instruments. On my trip, I brought art supplies and a board game from home to pass the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re car camping, the world is your oyster,” Low said. “If it fits in the car and you think it’s gonna improve your experience and be kind of fun out there, then bring it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This column was reported for Political Breakdown, a bi-monthly newsletter offering analysis and context on Bay Area and California political news. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/political-breakdown\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/5.4.2026-GGN-Letter-to-ROVs-SIGNED.pdf\">sent a letter\u003c/a> to election officials in California’s 58 counties this week with a simple request: count votes faster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom and state lawmakers have spent years building a vote-by-mail system that maximizes convenience and accessibility for California voters. The tradeoff: a longer vote count that President Donald Trump and Republicans have seized on to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077846/threats-to-californias-vote-by-mail-mount-before-june-primary\">spread false claims of voter fraud\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We must acknowledge that the longer the voting count takes, the more mis- and disinformation spreads,” Newsom wrote. “That means we must do all that we can to tabulate votes quickly and accurately. Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 80% of California voters cast ballots by mail in the November 2024 election. Unlike in-person voting, where verification happens upfront, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913446/planning-to-vote-by-mail-this-november-what-californians-need-to-know\">mail-in ballots\u003c/a> often arrive in bulk just before or after Election Day. This surge creates a backlog of ballots that must be inspected and have their signatures verified before they can be counted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Before, you went and you signed it right there at the desk and you voted and that was it, that was all the verification,” said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber at a press conference Tuesday. “Now you have, obviously, vote-by-mail…they take your ballots in, they have to verify every signature on that ballot.”[aside label=\"2026 California Voter Guide\" link1='https://www.kqed.org/voterguide,Learn everything you need to cast an informed ballot for the 2026 primary election' hero=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2026/04/Aside-California-Voter-Guide-2026-Primary-Election-1200x1200@2x.png]That process has led to notable delays. In 2024, one county reported results for less than a third of its ballots 10 days after the election — and three other counties had less than three-quarters of their ballots counted, according to an analysis by state legislative staff. In the 2025 special election for Oakland mayor, Alameda County did not \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036247/the-race-for-oakland-mayor-is-still-far-from-the-finish-line\">report an updated count\u003c/a> for three days after Election Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed California’s vote-counting process is to blame for Republican leads that “magically whittled away” after Election Day. Trump echoed those conspiracy theories when he pushed for a federal takeover of vote-by-mail — an action met with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078711/california-sues-to-block-trumps-order-on-vote-by-mail\">a legal challenge\u003c/a> from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The balance between speed and accuracy has been a delicate one for California leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In previous years, Weber and many election advocates were hesitant to call for a faster count — fearing they would be playing into conservative claims about Democrats being advantaged in a prolonged count.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a now-deleted post on X last year, Weber’s office wrote “Faster counting doesn’t increase accuracy — it only makes it more costly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that stance appears to be shifting, ever so slightly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, Weber called Newsom’s letter a “good thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to count fast, we want to be effective and efficient,” she said. “But at the same time we want to make sure that we’re accurate.”[aside label=\"2026 Bay Area Voter Guide\" link1='https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/bayarea,Learn about every single race and measure across the nine Bay Area counties' hero=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2026/04/Aside-Bay-Area-Voter-Guide-2026-Primary-Election-1200x1200@2x.png]The state Legislature is also taking some steps to speed up ballot processing. A new law signed by Newsom last year requires counties to report results for all ballots by the 13th day after the election — with notable exceptions for ballots that arrive late or have a mismatched signature. Another new law allows counties that send out ballots more than a month before the election to begin processing returned ballots immediately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is critical that we take full advantage of these tools to accurately count every lawfully cast ballot as quickly as possible to mitigate what are likely to be unprecedented and misleading attempts to undermine faith in the integrity of our election,” Newsom wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those changes may only make a difference around the edges. Election officials argue they need a major investment in workers, machines and larger spaces to handle a voting system their offices were never designed to accommodate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of my top priorities in budget talks is to try to get more funding for our counties to be able to buy the equipment they need or get the space that they need or hire the temporary staff that they need to try to count ballots as quickly as possible,” Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Palo Alto, told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing a case that could also result in a faster vote count — at the price of ballot access. Justices are considering a challenge to a Mississippi election law that, like California’s, allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive days later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A decision is expected in the coming weeks — as California’s primary election is already underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That process has led to notable delays. In 2024, one county reported results for less than a third of its ballots 10 days after the election — and three other counties had less than three-quarters of their ballots counted, according to an analysis by state legislative staff. In the 2025 special election for Oakland mayor, Alameda County did not \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036247/the-race-for-oakland-mayor-is-still-far-from-the-finish-line\">report an updated count\u003c/a> for three days after Election Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed California’s vote-counting process is to blame for Republican leads that “magically whittled away” after Election Day. Trump echoed those conspiracy theories when he pushed for a federal takeover of vote-by-mail — an action met with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078711/california-sues-to-block-trumps-order-on-vote-by-mail\">a legal challenge\u003c/a> from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The balance between speed and accuracy has been a delicate one for California leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In previous years, Weber and many election advocates were hesitant to call for a faster count — fearing they would be playing into conservative claims about Democrats being advantaged in a prolonged count.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a now-deleted post on X last year, Weber’s office wrote “Faster counting doesn’t increase accuracy — it only makes it more costly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that stance appears to be shifting, ever so slightly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, Weber called Newsom’s letter a “good thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to count fast, we want to be effective and efficient,” she said. “But at the same time we want to make sure that we’re accurate.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The state Legislature is also taking some steps to speed up ballot processing. A new law signed by Newsom last year requires counties to report results for all ballots by the 13th day after the election — with notable exceptions for ballots that arrive late or have a mismatched signature. Another new law allows counties that send out ballots more than a month before the election to begin processing returned ballots immediately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is critical that we take full advantage of these tools to accurately count every lawfully cast ballot as quickly as possible to mitigate what are likely to be unprecedented and misleading attempts to undermine faith in the integrity of our election,” Newsom wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those changes may only make a difference around the edges. Election officials argue they need a major investment in workers, machines and larger spaces to handle a voting system their offices were never designed to accommodate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of my top priorities in budget talks is to try to get more funding for our counties to be able to buy the equipment they need or get the space that they need or hire the temporary staff that they need to try to count ballots as quickly as possible,” Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Palo Alto, told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing a case that could also result in a faster vote count — at the price of ballot access. Justices are considering a challenge to a Mississippi election law that, like California’s, allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive days later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A decision is expected in the coming weeks — as California’s primary election is already underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 3
},
"link": "/podcasts/baycurious",
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}
},
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"id": "bbc-world-service",
"title": "BBC World Service",
"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9pm-10pm, TUE-FRI 1am-2am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_world_service",
"meta": {
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"source": "BBC World Service"
},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/global-news-podcast/id135067274?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/BBC-World-Service-p455581/",
"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
}
},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The California Report",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/26099305-72af-4542-9dde-ac1807fe36d5/kqed-s-the-california-report",
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}
},
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"id": "californiareportmagazine",
"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"code-switch-life-kit": {
"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
"airtime": "SUN 9pm-10pm",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/code-switch-life-kit",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy",
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"commonwealth-club": {
"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.commonwealthclub.org/podcasts",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/commonwealth-club-of-california-podcast/id976334034?mt=2",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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}
},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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},
"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/4s8b",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
}
},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fresh-Air-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"here-and-now": {
"id": "here-and-now",
"title": "Here & Now",
"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Hidden-Brain-p787503/",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"meta": {
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"
}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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