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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Friday, December 19, 2025…\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The holiday season brings many traditions for families across California. One that is tried and true – decorating your home with a Christmas tree. While most families buy artificial trees these days, there are still some places in the state where you can not only get a living tree, but even cut it down yourself.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Roughly 2,000 people \u003ca href=\"https://www.kazu.org/kazu-news/2025-12-15/the-sounds-of-christmas-in-the-adobes\">meander through Old Monterey\u003c/a> every December to tour California’s oldest government building and other Alta California adobes. Monterey State Historic Park interpreter Aaron Gilmartin helped coordinate the immersive event.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A panel of federal judges could rule soon on whether \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/12/proposition-50-republican-lawsuit-hearing/\">California’s new congressional maps\u003c/a> can stay in place. That’s after a three day court hearing in Los Angeles ended Wednesday.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Bay Area Christmas Tree Farm Brings The Holiday Spirit To Customers\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://cvtreefarm.com/\">Castro Valley Christmas Tree Farm\u003c/a> sits in the East Bay Hills. With more than 12 acres, the farm has been in business for more than 40 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike a lot of farms these days, the main focus is the “choose and cut” option. That allows guests to be able to explore the fields, select their own tree, and cut it down with the saw given to them at the entrance. “Yeah used to be I think in the early days, they would just come out and cut a tree and go. Nowadays, it seems like they want to stay here longer,” said Paul Illingworth, the former owner of the farm. He now serves as a consultant there. “They want the experience of walking around in the forest. That’s as important to them as actually getting the tree.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.christmastreeassociation.org/press-releases/survey-finds-artificial-christmas-trees-continue-to-dominate-us-holiday-dcor\">latest survey from the American Christmas Tree Association\u003c/a>, more than 80% of households that planned to buy Christmas trees this year were going to get an artificial one. That’s a trend that’s been fairly steady over the last decade. 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And it does make you feel like you’re a part of a big activity.” The annual self-guided walking tour is the Monterey State Historic Park Association’s largest fundraiser. Proceeds support year-round education and restoration projects related to the historic structures scattered throughout Old Monterey that make up the \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=575\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Monterey State Historic Park\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to these state-run buildings, privately-owned historic structures—some of which aren’t usually accessible to the public—also open their doors for Christmas in the Adobes. “Monterey’s Path of History is one of the oldest historic walking trails in the country,” said State Parks Interpreter Aaron Gilmartin. “To have 25 locations open to the public for these two nights, across a dozen different organizations, is unprecedented.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Fate Of Proposition 50 In Judge’s Hands\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Closing arguments wrapped up Wednesday in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12062781/proposition-50-passes-in-california-boosting-democrats-in-fight-for-us-house-control\">a lawsuit over California’s Proposition 50,\u003c/a> which was approved by voters in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The case was brought by the California Republican Party, with support from the Trump administration. 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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You see people out on the streets, and there’s a little crowd and everyone’s got a map,” said Polina Spakovsky, who drove down from San Jose with her mother for the event “It’s so cute. And it does make you feel like you’re a part of a big activity.” The annual self-guided walking tour is the Monterey State Historic Park Association’s largest fundraiser. Proceeds support year-round education and restoration projects related to the historic structures scattered throughout Old Monterey that make up the \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=575\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Monterey State Historic Park\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to these state-run buildings, privately-owned historic structures—some of which aren’t usually accessible to the public—also open their doors for Christmas in the Adobes. “Monterey’s Path of History is one of the oldest historic walking trails in the country,” said State Parks Interpreter Aaron Gilmartin. “To have 25 locations open to the public for these two nights, across a dozen different organizations, is unprecedented.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Fate Of Proposition 50 In Judge’s Hands\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Closing arguments wrapped up Wednesday in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12062781/proposition-50-passes-in-california-boosting-democrats-in-fight-for-us-house-control\">a lawsuit over California’s Proposition 50,\u003c/a> which was approved by voters in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The case was brought by the California Republican Party, with support from the Trump administration. The GOP claims the congressional maps approved by state voters are unconstitutional because they illegally benefit Latino voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State officials argue the maps were clearly presented to voters as a way to give Democrats an advantage in the upcoming midterms. Democratic leaders wrote the measure after President Trump urged Texas to redraw its maps to benefit the GOP.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Supreme Court \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/12/04/nx-s1-5619692/supreme-court-texas-redistricting-map\">has held that states may gerrymander districts for partisan\u003c/a>, but not racial, purposes. The high court recently allowed the Texas maps to stay in place.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "chef-chus-the-family-owned-chinese-restaurant-that-grew-up-with-silicon-valley",
"title": "Chef Chu’s, the Family-Owned Chinese Restaurant that Grew Up With Silicon Valley",
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"headTitle": "Chef Chu’s, the Family-Owned Chinese Restaurant that Grew Up With Silicon Valley | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>For more than ten years, I’ve been traveling all over the state, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lmorehouse\">reporting stories\u003c/a> about food and farming from every county in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">the state\u003c/a>. Now, for the 58th and very last story in the series, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiafoodways\">California Foodways,\u003c/a> I went back to where I grew up — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/santa-clara-county\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a>, to a special-occasion restaurant from my childhood: Chef Chu’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the restaurant opened in 1970, it was a small family business, and the area around it was a relatively sleepy suburb. Now, it’s at the heart of Silicon Valley — but they don’t deliver, and there’s no online ordering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Chef Chu’s is an institution. It’s been visited by luminaries in entertainment, politics and business. Throughout all of the change in the last 55 years, Chef Chu’s has adapted and held on, and remained true to its identity as a family business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, I met my cousin Billy and his family here — his wife Kimberly, teenagers Will and Guinevere and toddler Imogen. They’re regulars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even early on a weeknight, the lobby at Chef Chu’s was bustling. One whole wall is a glass window, looking into the kitchen where 82-year-old Chef Lawrence Chu and his cooks work. At the bar, a staff member took phone orders, and waiters in crisp white shirts and bow ties moved efficiently from room to room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067137\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067137\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Customers dine at Chef Chu’s in Los Altos on December 11, 2025. Chef Chu’s is a family run business, owned by Lawrence Chu, which has been operating since 1970 and is known for not only the food, but also for hosting celebrities and tech innovators. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As we waited for our table we checked out a long wall of celebrity photos including Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chef Chu’s opened the year I was born, and while I went there as a kid, I hadn’t eaten there in decades. For a white girl raised in the suburbs in the ‘70s and ‘80s, this was one of the few Chinese restaurants around. If I didn’t learn to eat with chopsticks at Chef Chu’s, I certainly practiced there, and I have a vague memory of my late grandma teaching me to spin a lazy Susan in the dining room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That just made it more special when Will, who has heard a lot of my stories in the car with his parents, suggested I do a story on Chef Chu’s. I asked him to co-report it with me, and many of the best questions in our interviews were his.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither of us had met \u003cem>the\u003c/em> Chef Chu before, in spite of eating there countless times. We met him in a private dining room where he made us feel comfortable by pouring some tea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout our time with Lawrence Chu, it was a little hard to see the differences between the man, the job, the restaurant and the brand. He’s been at this a long time.\u003cbr>\n[aside postID=news_12065744 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251119-CJSBBQANDFISH-45-BL-KQED.jpg']He was just 26 years old when he opened Chef Chu’s. His wife — girlfriend at the time — was only 20.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I told her ‘I have a dream. I want to open a fast food Chinese joint in every corner of America. That sounds so terrific.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She disagreed. She said, he recalled, that if he found one good location, and opened one restaurant, she would join him. He said he’s followed her advice ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But why open a restaurant?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I liked to eat. I liked to talk. I liked cooking things. Making things a little different. And I liked to be the boss. I liked running things,” he said, which was evident in the large kitchen. The scene was fast-paced but very controlled, with 17 cooks prepping food, each at a different station: chopping vegetables, working the fryer, making soup. The cooks assigned to stir fry with huge woks had tidy prep stations at waist height, filled with ingredients from fresh ginger to chili paste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just before the waiters carried the dishes — Mongolian beef, Kung Pau tofu, chicken salad — into the dining room, Chef Chu gave them a once-over. On one plate, he adjusted a chili pepper so the plate looked exactly how he wanted it to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chef Chu stepped away from the kitchen to do something he’s known for: taking a turn around the dining room, stopping to talk with customers. He asked each how their meals were, what they were eating and thanked them for coming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One set of customers even told me that they were here on the day Chef Chu’s opened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Except for the location, the restaurant didn’t look anything like Chef Chu’s does today. Chu said he started with just twelve items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067805\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067805\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Larry Chu, son of owner Lawrence Chu, sets a table at Chef Chu’s in Los Altos on December 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tam Vu/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>His oldest son, Larry, and the restaurant’s general manager, was born in 1973, a few years after the restaurant opened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these customers come in and say, ‘Oh yeah, you were sitting in a baby bassinet, underneath the air conditioner, which was dripping, while your dad was stir-frying and your mom was doing everything in the front: cashier, waitress, take-out,’” he remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were in a small space at the intersection of El Camino Real and San Antonio Road in Los Altos, in a strip mall shared with a hairdresser, a sewing machine and vacuum repair shop and accounting offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a small Chinese takeout place with one door and a countertop, like at a diner, and you could sit at the counter, maybe five stools,” Larry recalled. “You could look right into the kitchen where they were stir-frying. ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, everything looked like it was going great, the elder Chu said. But after six months, business was down. When they asked customers, they heard that they wanted more choices, and a dining room where their kids could throw rice and be messy. Chef Chu’s had to expand. When the sewing repair shop’s lease was up, they opened a dining room there, and kept growing until they bought the whole building complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also expanded the menu. To appeal to a wider customer base, Chef Chu started making food from four different regions of China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067766\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/Side-by-side-Downpage-5-e1766084498689.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067766\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/Side-by-side-Downpage-5-e1766084498689.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"666\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: The original Chef Chu’s, next door to the current location at the intersection of El Camino Real and San Antonio Road in Los Altos. Right: A family portrait of the Chus. Chu said his mother wanted the family to be the “Asian Kennedys.” \u003ccite>(Jon M. Chu)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And the family also grew — to five children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We pretty much lived here,” said Larry. “If we wanted to see my dad, we had to come to Chef Chu’s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The restaurant grew in parallel with the community around it. Larry remembers this area — which is totally developed now — looking really different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This area here in Los Altos was known for their apricot orchards. So, a lot of the houses of my friends that I grew up with — they had apricot trees growing in their backyards.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I remembered this, too, growing up in Cupertino, but 16-year-old Will hasn’t ever seen an orchard in Santa Clara County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1970s, the term “Silicon Valley” wasn’t popular — yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had a number of friends whose parents had companies that were building these chips that were going into these computers,” Larry said.[aside postID=news_12058556 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20251002_REDWOODEMPIRE_GC-28-KQED.jpg']He saw computers change from monstrosities that filled whole rooms, to desktops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chef Chu saw all of that develop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Silicon Valley pioneers became Chef Chu’s regulars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mr. Tramiel was the founder of Atari, Chuck Geshke who founded Adobe, Gordon Moore, Paul Allen, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs — when he was just a kid — all these people from Silicon Valley ate at Chef Chu’s,” Larry remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though they were in different businesses, his dad shared a certain approach with some of these customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Silicon Valley people are very quick to adapt to change,” Larry said. “They’re not scared of trying new things. And that’s just part of the community that is around you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After college, Larry moved to Hong Kong and worked in sports marketing for years. And the youngest of the kids, Jon Chu, tried his luck as a Hollywood director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, Jon M. Chu — the director of\u003cem> Crazy Rich Asians\u003c/em>, \u003cem>In the Heights\u003c/em> and the \u003cem>Wicked\u003c/em> movies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we reached out to him, Jon was on a world-wide press tour promoting \u003cem>Wicked: For Good\u003c/em>, but he sent us some voice memos from Brazil in response to our questions about growing up in Silicon Valley in the ‘80s and ‘90s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067135\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067135\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An assortment of dishes at Chef Chu’s in Los Altos on December 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Everywhere I turned, people were thinking of new ways of how to change the world,” Jon told us. “What tomorrow looked like was on everybody’s mind. The engineer was revered. This was before they were on the cover of magazines or drove fancy cars. It was all about work and discovery and invention and innovation there,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, like his brother Larry already told us, many of those people converged at the restaurant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sharing stories, sharing space, sharing ideas was such a central part to Chef Chu’s itself. Now going into a fairly selfish business, the entertainment business, I think that that sense of ‘What does tomorrow look like?’ still stays in me in the stories that I tell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His family’s dedication and hard work has also stayed with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw my dad and my mom work their butts off in the kitchen, out in the front. I saw many sides to it. There was the side that no one saw, which is the grind, the deboning the chicken, getting the deliveries in the back, my grandma doing the books with her abacus,” Jon remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he saw his parents act as the ultimate hosts: “Being the ambassadors to people who may or may not have ever met a Chinese family, whoever have had or not had Chinese food, introducing them to new flavors.”[aside postID=news_12047368 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250702-OaklandProduceMarket-13-BL_qed.jpg']There are a lot of similarities between running a restaurant and making a movie, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone knows the red carpet and when the movie’s out, but they don’t see how hard it is to begin. They don’t know how hard it is in the messy middle. They don’t know the pressures before anyone ever sees it sort of nicely colored and presented.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though he can’t visit as often as he likes, Jon said that Chef Chu’s will always be home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been the place that I return to to get grounded. It’s a place I return to get fed physically but also emotionally.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Especially with his five kids in tow. His movie posters are on the walls, but he really likes having customers catch him up on all their family stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a connection point [between] what I’m doing out in Los Angeles or out in the world. The thread pulls all the way back home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a world in which this story could have gone really differently, with Chef Chu’s closing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s when Jon was trying to get a foothold in Hollywood and Larry was in Hong Kong, their dad was starting to feel the strain of running the restaurant for more than 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067138\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067138\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chef Chu’s is located in Los Altos on December 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I was burned out at the time,” said Lawrence Chu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had business collaborations, and cookbooks, but the pressure had built up over the years. Plus, his beloved wife, Ruth, had breast cancer. He knew he couldn’t run the restaurant alone forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He spoke with Larry about his future plans, a conversation Larry remembers well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I could never imagine Los Altos without a Chef Chu’s there. What if when I have kids, I won’t have a Chef Chu’s to bring my kids to and eat? That’s when I decided: “Yes, Dad, I’ll come back and join the family business.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s how it was meant to be, Jon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were all very proud to have Larry come back. It felt like the legacy was continuing,” the director said. “There were a lot of hopes and dreams pinned on him. Coming back was like the return of the king, or the return of the prince, is a better way to say it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For his father, when Larry joined the restaurant, he gave him a shot in the arm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He let me feel that this is \u003cem>a life —\u003c/em> the restaurant business — instead of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067812\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067812\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lawrence Chu (right) greets David Huff (left) at Chef Chu’s in Los Altos on December 11, 2025.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When he gets tired, he said, Larry reminds him of one of Chef Chu’s own mantras that’s carried him all these years: “Treat every day like opening day,” with the same energy and drive the family felt back in 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As much as Silicon Valley and Chef Chu’s have grown in parallel, Larry explained that he and his dad decided to take a deliberate path away from today’s tech climate of scaling up. They have one location, and no franchises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you walk into a restaurant where the chef comes out and talks to you, you can feel that this restaurant’s got a little soul to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because their customers keep coming back, Larry said, “that makes us feel like what we’re doing is worthwhile. We didn’t have to scale. Maybe enough is enough. Maybe you could be happy with what you have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As our interviews wrapped up, and Will and I were about to leave, he had one more question for Larry: What’s the future of Chef Chu’s?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the question Larry asked himself 20 years ago, and now, he has a very sure answer: “You don’t have to worry about that. When my kids have their kids, there will be a Chef Chu’s here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For more than ten years, I’ve been traveling all over the state, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lmorehouse\">reporting stories\u003c/a> about food and farming from every county in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">the state\u003c/a>. Now, for the 58th and very last story in the series, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiafoodways\">California Foodways,\u003c/a> I went back to where I grew up — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/santa-clara-county\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a>, to a special-occasion restaurant from my childhood: Chef Chu’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the restaurant opened in 1970, it was a small family business, and the area around it was a relatively sleepy suburb. Now, it’s at the heart of Silicon Valley — but they don’t deliver, and there’s no online ordering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Chef Chu’s is an institution. It’s been visited by luminaries in entertainment, politics and business. Throughout all of the change in the last 55 years, Chef Chu’s has adapted and held on, and remained true to its identity as a family business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, I met my cousin Billy and his family here — his wife Kimberly, teenagers Will and Guinevere and toddler Imogen. They’re regulars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even early on a weeknight, the lobby at Chef Chu’s was bustling. One whole wall is a glass window, looking into the kitchen where 82-year-old Chef Lawrence Chu and his cooks work. At the bar, a staff member took phone orders, and waiters in crisp white shirts and bow ties moved efficiently from room to room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067137\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067137\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00667_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Customers dine at Chef Chu’s in Los Altos on December 11, 2025. Chef Chu’s is a family run business, owned by Lawrence Chu, which has been operating since 1970 and is known for not only the food, but also for hosting celebrities and tech innovators. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As we waited for our table we checked out a long wall of celebrity photos including Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chef Chu’s opened the year I was born, and while I went there as a kid, I hadn’t eaten there in decades. For a white girl raised in the suburbs in the ‘70s and ‘80s, this was one of the few Chinese restaurants around. If I didn’t learn to eat with chopsticks at Chef Chu’s, I certainly practiced there, and I have a vague memory of my late grandma teaching me to spin a lazy Susan in the dining room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That just made it more special when Will, who has heard a lot of my stories in the car with his parents, suggested I do a story on Chef Chu’s. I asked him to co-report it with me, and many of the best questions in our interviews were his.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither of us had met \u003cem>the\u003c/em> Chef Chu before, in spite of eating there countless times. We met him in a private dining room where he made us feel comfortable by pouring some tea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout our time with Lawrence Chu, it was a little hard to see the differences between the man, the job, the restaurant and the brand. He’s been at this a long time.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>He was just 26 years old when he opened Chef Chu’s. His wife — girlfriend at the time — was only 20.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I told her ‘I have a dream. I want to open a fast food Chinese joint in every corner of America. That sounds so terrific.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She disagreed. She said, he recalled, that if he found one good location, and opened one restaurant, she would join him. He said he’s followed her advice ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But why open a restaurant?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I liked to eat. I liked to talk. I liked cooking things. Making things a little different. And I liked to be the boss. I liked running things,” he said, which was evident in the large kitchen. The scene was fast-paced but very controlled, with 17 cooks prepping food, each at a different station: chopping vegetables, working the fryer, making soup. The cooks assigned to stir fry with huge woks had tidy prep stations at waist height, filled with ingredients from fresh ginger to chili paste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just before the waiters carried the dishes — Mongolian beef, Kung Pau tofu, chicken salad — into the dining room, Chef Chu gave them a once-over. On one plate, he adjusted a chili pepper so the plate looked exactly how he wanted it to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chef Chu stepped away from the kitchen to do something he’s known for: taking a turn around the dining room, stopping to talk with customers. He asked each how their meals were, what they were eating and thanked them for coming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One set of customers even told me that they were here on the day Chef Chu’s opened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Except for the location, the restaurant didn’t look anything like Chef Chu’s does today. Chu said he started with just twelve items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067805\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067805\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00588_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Larry Chu, son of owner Lawrence Chu, sets a table at Chef Chu’s in Los Altos on December 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tam Vu/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>His oldest son, Larry, and the restaurant’s general manager, was born in 1973, a few years after the restaurant opened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these customers come in and say, ‘Oh yeah, you were sitting in a baby bassinet, underneath the air conditioner, which was dripping, while your dad was stir-frying and your mom was doing everything in the front: cashier, waitress, take-out,’” he remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were in a small space at the intersection of El Camino Real and San Antonio Road in Los Altos, in a strip mall shared with a hairdresser, a sewing machine and vacuum repair shop and accounting offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a small Chinese takeout place with one door and a countertop, like at a diner, and you could sit at the counter, maybe five stools,” Larry recalled. “You could look right into the kitchen where they were stir-frying. ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, everything looked like it was going great, the elder Chu said. But after six months, business was down. When they asked customers, they heard that they wanted more choices, and a dining room where their kids could throw rice and be messy. Chef Chu’s had to expand. When the sewing repair shop’s lease was up, they opened a dining room there, and kept growing until they bought the whole building complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also expanded the menu. To appeal to a wider customer base, Chef Chu started making food from four different regions of China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067766\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/Side-by-side-Downpage-5-e1766084498689.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067766\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/Side-by-side-Downpage-5-e1766084498689.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"666\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: The original Chef Chu’s, next door to the current location at the intersection of El Camino Real and San Antonio Road in Los Altos. Right: A family portrait of the Chus. Chu said his mother wanted the family to be the “Asian Kennedys.” \u003ccite>(Jon M. Chu)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And the family also grew — to five children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We pretty much lived here,” said Larry. “If we wanted to see my dad, we had to come to Chef Chu’s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The restaurant grew in parallel with the community around it. Larry remembers this area — which is totally developed now — looking really different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This area here in Los Altos was known for their apricot orchards. So, a lot of the houses of my friends that I grew up with — they had apricot trees growing in their backyards.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I remembered this, too, growing up in Cupertino, but 16-year-old Will hasn’t ever seen an orchard in Santa Clara County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1970s, the term “Silicon Valley” wasn’t popular — yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had a number of friends whose parents had companies that were building these chips that were going into these computers,” Larry said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>He saw computers change from monstrosities that filled whole rooms, to desktops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chef Chu saw all of that develop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Silicon Valley pioneers became Chef Chu’s regulars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mr. Tramiel was the founder of Atari, Chuck Geshke who founded Adobe, Gordon Moore, Paul Allen, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs — when he was just a kid — all these people from Silicon Valley ate at Chef Chu’s,” Larry remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though they were in different businesses, his dad shared a certain approach with some of these customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Silicon Valley people are very quick to adapt to change,” Larry said. “They’re not scared of trying new things. And that’s just part of the community that is around you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After college, Larry moved to Hong Kong and worked in sports marketing for years. And the youngest of the kids, Jon Chu, tried his luck as a Hollywood director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, Jon M. Chu — the director of\u003cem> Crazy Rich Asians\u003c/em>, \u003cem>In the Heights\u003c/em> and the \u003cem>Wicked\u003c/em> movies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we reached out to him, Jon was on a world-wide press tour promoting \u003cem>Wicked: For Good\u003c/em>, but he sent us some voice memos from Brazil in response to our questions about growing up in Silicon Valley in the ‘80s and ‘90s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067135\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067135\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00508_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An assortment of dishes at Chef Chu’s in Los Altos on December 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Everywhere I turned, people were thinking of new ways of how to change the world,” Jon told us. “What tomorrow looked like was on everybody’s mind. The engineer was revered. This was before they were on the cover of magazines or drove fancy cars. It was all about work and discovery and invention and innovation there,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, like his brother Larry already told us, many of those people converged at the restaurant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sharing stories, sharing space, sharing ideas was such a central part to Chef Chu’s itself. Now going into a fairly selfish business, the entertainment business, I think that that sense of ‘What does tomorrow look like?’ still stays in me in the stories that I tell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His family’s dedication and hard work has also stayed with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw my dad and my mom work their butts off in the kitchen, out in the front. I saw many sides to it. There was the side that no one saw, which is the grind, the deboning the chicken, getting the deliveries in the back, my grandma doing the books with her abacus,” Jon remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he saw his parents act as the ultimate hosts: “Being the ambassadors to people who may or may not have ever met a Chinese family, whoever have had or not had Chinese food, introducing them to new flavors.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There are a lot of similarities between running a restaurant and making a movie, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone knows the red carpet and when the movie’s out, but they don’t see how hard it is to begin. They don’t know how hard it is in the messy middle. They don’t know the pressures before anyone ever sees it sort of nicely colored and presented.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though he can’t visit as often as he likes, Jon said that Chef Chu’s will always be home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been the place that I return to to get grounded. It’s a place I return to get fed physically but also emotionally.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Especially with his five kids in tow. His movie posters are on the walls, but he really likes having customers catch him up on all their family stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a connection point [between] what I’m doing out in Los Angeles or out in the world. The thread pulls all the way back home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a world in which this story could have gone really differently, with Chef Chu’s closing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s when Jon was trying to get a foothold in Hollywood and Larry was in Hong Kong, their dad was starting to feel the strain of running the restaurant for more than 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067138\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067138\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-CHEFCHU00689_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chef Chu’s is located in Los Altos on December 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I was burned out at the time,” said Lawrence Chu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had business collaborations, and cookbooks, but the pressure had built up over the years. Plus, his beloved wife, Ruth, had breast cancer. He knew he couldn’t run the restaurant alone forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He spoke with Larry about his future plans, a conversation Larry remembers well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I could never imagine Los Altos without a Chef Chu’s there. What if when I have kids, I won’t have a Chef Chu’s to bring my kids to and eat? That’s when I decided: “Yes, Dad, I’ll come back and join the family business.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s how it was meant to be, Jon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were all very proud to have Larry come back. It felt like the legacy was continuing,” the director said. “There were a lot of hopes and dreams pinned on him. Coming back was like the return of the king, or the return of the prince, is a better way to say it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For his father, when Larry joined the restaurant, he gave him a shot in the arm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He let me feel that this is \u003cem>a life —\u003c/em> the restaurant business — instead of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067812\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067812\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-chefchu00496_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lawrence Chu (right) greets David Huff (left) at Chef Chu’s in Los Altos on December 11, 2025.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When he gets tired, he said, Larry reminds him of one of Chef Chu’s own mantras that’s carried him all these years: “Treat every day like opening day,” with the same energy and drive the family felt back in 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As much as Silicon Valley and Chef Chu’s have grown in parallel, Larry explained that he and his dad decided to take a deliberate path away from today’s tech climate of scaling up. They have one location, and no franchises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you walk into a restaurant where the chef comes out and talks to you, you can feel that this restaurant’s got a little soul to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because their customers keep coming back, Larry said, “that makes us feel like what we’re doing is worthwhile. We didn’t have to scale. Maybe enough is enough. Maybe you could be happy with what you have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As our interviews wrapped up, and Will and I were about to leave, he had one more question for Larry: What’s the future of Chef Chu’s?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the question Larry asked himself 20 years ago, and now, he has a very sure answer: “You don’t have to worry about that. When my kids have their kids, there will be a Chef Chu’s here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, December 18, 2025…\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fresno Yosemite International Airport may be considered small, but more than 2 million travelers passed through it last year. And the city of Fresno is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/business-economy/2025-12-16/in-fresno-a-growing-airport-signals-a-growing-region\">moving to expand the airport\u003c/a> and accommodate a growing customer base for a growing region. In 2023, the airport broke ground on a new terminal. And that terminal opened just in time for Christmas and New Year travel. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Officials in the Bay Area city of Dublin voted unanimously this week to oppose using a closed federal women’s prison as an immigration detention facility, or for any type of incarceration. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArtP-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/business-economy/2025-12-16/in-fresno-a-growing-airport-signals-a-growing-region\">\u003cstrong>In Fresno, A Growing Airport Signals A Growing Region\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Fresno Yosemite International Airport may be small compared to other larger hubs, but in recent years it has been busier than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 2 million travelers passed through the airport last year alone – a testament to both the growing region and its expanding customer base. To meet the demand, the City of Fresno began major renovations and expansion projects at the airport in 2023. A new air terminal opened Wednesday just in time for the busy holiday season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city and county of Fresno have also recently embarked on new projects that seek to transform the region’s future and signal the region’s shifting economy. A regional rail system is being explored at the county level to connect rural communities. That’s in addition to construction for the state’s high-speed rail that will cut through the city and include a major station. At the airport, flyers will soon see a refreshed terminal with wider TSA lines and a floor-to-ceiling mural anchoring the space. City leaders have also unveiled a new airport mascot, a blue bird wearing an aviator hat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But while construction has steadily moved forward, the expansion faced uncertainty earlier this year when federal funding for Fresno was put at risk. Mayor Jerry Dyer said the city was notified that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants could be pulled. The funding was not only for the airport improvements, but also for other major projects such as housing, transportation, capital improvement projects, and environmental safety. A total of $642 million were at risk, Dyer said. According to city officials, the funding threats were tied to language related to diversity, equity, and inclusion included in grant applications. City leaders viewed the move as federal overreach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In August, Fresno led a lawsuit against the federal government seeking to restore the funding. Several other California cities – Eureka, Sacramento, and South Lake Tahoe – joined the case. The following month, a judge ruled in favor of the cities and allowed the funding to continue. The federal government has since appealed that decision, but Fresno moved forward with its airport expansion project as planned.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"routes-Site-routes-Post-Title-__Title__title\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12067566/dublin-council-takes-stand-against-turning-closed-prison-into-ice-detention\">\u003cstrong>Dublin Council Takes Stand Against Turning Closed Prison Into ICE Detention\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Dublin City Council unanimously voted Tuesday night to oppose repurposing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/federal-correctional-institution-in-dublin\">a shuttered federal women’s prison\u003c/a> as an immigration detention facility or for any other type of incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FCI Dublin \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11984115/women-forced-to-relocate-from-fci-dublin-prison-report-traumatizing-journey-seek-compassionate-release\">closed in scandal\u003c/a> last year amid allegations from scores of incarcerated women that they had faced years of sexual assault and mistreatment there. Following \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/prison-union-concerned-fci-dublin-could-be-turned-ice-detention-center\">news reports\u003c/a> that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had toured the facility in February, community members rallied against a potential pivot to ICE detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 100 Dublin residents and others attended Tuesday evening’s council meeting, carrying signs that read “ICE out of Dublin,” and “We welcome immigrants here.” Vice Mayor Jean Josey said the message was heard loud and clear. 40% of Dublin residents are foreign-born, and she said she’s concerned they could be subject to racial profiling by immigration agents, as she’s observed in the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to enforcement in other cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing fear around the country. We’re seeing impacts on schools and small businesses,” she said. “When there’s a detention facility nearby, it is well documented that there’s increased enforcement that’s not necessarily targeting folks with criminal backgrounds, but folks who may just look as if they might be immigrants.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, December 18, 2025…\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fresno Yosemite International Airport may be considered small, but more than 2 million travelers passed through it last year. And the city of Fresno is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/business-economy/2025-12-16/in-fresno-a-growing-airport-signals-a-growing-region\">moving to expand the airport\u003c/a> and accommodate a growing customer base for a growing region. In 2023, the airport broke ground on a new terminal. And that terminal opened just in time for Christmas and New Year travel. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Officials in the Bay Area city of Dublin voted unanimously this week to oppose using a closed federal women’s prison as an immigration detention facility, or for any type of incarceration. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArtP-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/business-economy/2025-12-16/in-fresno-a-growing-airport-signals-a-growing-region\">\u003cstrong>In Fresno, A Growing Airport Signals A Growing Region\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Fresno Yosemite International Airport may be small compared to other larger hubs, but in recent years it has been busier than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 2 million travelers passed through the airport last year alone – a testament to both the growing region and its expanding customer base. To meet the demand, the City of Fresno began major renovations and expansion projects at the airport in 2023. A new air terminal opened Wednesday just in time for the busy holiday season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city and county of Fresno have also recently embarked on new projects that seek to transform the region’s future and signal the region’s shifting economy. A regional rail system is being explored at the county level to connect rural communities. That’s in addition to construction for the state’s high-speed rail that will cut through the city and include a major station. At the airport, flyers will soon see a refreshed terminal with wider TSA lines and a floor-to-ceiling mural anchoring the space. City leaders have also unveiled a new airport mascot, a blue bird wearing an aviator hat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But while construction has steadily moved forward, the expansion faced uncertainty earlier this year when federal funding for Fresno was put at risk. Mayor Jerry Dyer said the city was notified that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants could be pulled. The funding was not only for the airport improvements, but also for other major projects such as housing, transportation, capital improvement projects, and environmental safety. A total of $642 million were at risk, Dyer said. According to city officials, the funding threats were tied to language related to diversity, equity, and inclusion included in grant applications. City leaders viewed the move as federal overreach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In August, Fresno led a lawsuit against the federal government seeking to restore the funding. Several other California cities – Eureka, Sacramento, and South Lake Tahoe – joined the case. The following month, a judge ruled in favor of the cities and allowed the funding to continue. The federal government has since appealed that decision, but Fresno moved forward with its airport expansion project as planned.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"routes-Site-routes-Post-Title-__Title__title\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12067566/dublin-council-takes-stand-against-turning-closed-prison-into-ice-detention\">\u003cstrong>Dublin Council Takes Stand Against Turning Closed Prison Into ICE Detention\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Dublin City Council unanimously voted Tuesday night to oppose repurposing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/federal-correctional-institution-in-dublin\">a shuttered federal women’s prison\u003c/a> as an immigration detention facility or for any other type of incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FCI Dublin \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11984115/women-forced-to-relocate-from-fci-dublin-prison-report-traumatizing-journey-seek-compassionate-release\">closed in scandal\u003c/a> last year amid allegations from scores of incarcerated women that they had faced years of sexual assault and mistreatment there. Following \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/prison-union-concerned-fci-dublin-could-be-turned-ice-detention-center\">news reports\u003c/a> that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had toured the facility in February, community members rallied against a potential pivot to ICE detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 100 Dublin residents and others attended Tuesday evening’s council meeting, carrying signs that read “ICE out of Dublin,” and “We welcome immigrants here.” Vice Mayor Jean Josey said the message was heard loud and clear. 40% of Dublin residents are foreign-born, and she said she’s concerned they could be subject to racial profiling by immigration agents, as she’s observed in the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to enforcement in other cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing fear around the country. We’re seeing impacts on schools and small businesses,” she said. “When there’s a detention facility nearby, it is well documented that there’s increased enforcement that’s not necessarily targeting folks with criminal backgrounds, but folks who may just look as if they might be immigrants.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "the-best-san-francisco-movies-to-stream-this-holiday-season",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This article originally published in 2020. It has been lightly updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Ben Kaiser asked for our favorite movies that are filmed and set in San Francisco. While we don’t normally take on subjective questions, we figured with cozy season upon us, it was a great time to cuddle up on the sofa with some classics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4565381532&light=true\" width=\"100%\" we asked peter hartlaub san francisco chronicle culture critic and host carly severn kqed senior editor of audience news resident movie obsessive to share their top picks on a recent bay curious podcast episode. they shared the movies would be most likely sit down watch over holidays not necessarily critically acclaimed films. our some favorites too>Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOhoIBkOYf0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092007/\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> “To save Earth from an alien probe, Admiral James T. Kirk and his fugitive crew go back in time to San Francisco in 1986 to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it: humpback whales.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> This charming, lighthearted movie makes the Bay Area look undeniably fun. One KQED fan said the film was “influential in shaping how I think about the environment and is the Star Trek movie with the most heart in it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Inside Out (2015)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRUAzGQ3nSY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> “After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions — Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness — conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> Pixar has dropped Bay Area references in several animated films over the years, but “Inside Out” takes it to the next level. The film takes place in the Bay Area, and features rich and detailed imagery from around the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Zodiac (2007)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNncHPl1UXg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443706/\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> “In the late 1960s/early 1970s, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> “Second only to Alfred Hitchcock, director David Fincher has a great sensibility for San Francisco,” says Peter Hartlaub. “This film absolutely captures a place in time. The music choices, the visual cues, the production design. Nothing’s wasted. I was a little kid, and I remember hearing about the Zodiac killer, and this movie brought that back so well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0FnJDhY9-0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4353250/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A young man searches for home in the changing city that seems to have left him behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> One of the few films on our list that is a commentary on the Bay Area, and how gentrification has decimated once vibrant Black neighborhoods. The cinematography will absolutely take your breath away. Pause the movie at any point and you might be inspired to hang the still image on your wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Basic Instinct (1992)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f96x3UpoaQ\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103772/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A violent police detective investigates a brutal murder that might involve a manipulative and seductive novelist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> “The plot is ludicrous … but it’s a romp. It’s a riot. It also looks way better than it needs to, and it sounds way better than it needs to,” says Carly Severn. “I love the way it uses San Francisco. It goes for all the classic shots — there’s North Beach, there’s Telegraph Hill.” You’ll also find lots of gorgeous helicopter shots in this one.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Always Be My Maybe (2019)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHBcWHY9lN4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7374948/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> Everyone assumed Sasha and Marcus would wind up together except for Sasha and Marcus. Reconnecting after 15 years, the two start to wonder — maybe?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> “It makes San Francisco look really cool, but it also makes San Francisco look normal. A lot of it is set in the Outer Richmond,” says Carly Severn. “As a resident of the Bay Area there’s such a pleasure in looking at the screen and saying, ‘Oh, I know that! That’s cool!”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc_0dlmSq7I\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077745/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>: \u003c/strong>When strange seeds drift to earth from space, mysterious pods begin to grow and invade San Francisco, where they replicate the residents into emotionless automatons one body at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> “I think this is the most underrated San Francisco movie,” says Peter Hartlaub. “A lot of directors come in and they love San Francisco, but they shoot from the same seven places — Telegraph Hill, the Golden Gate Bridge, The Palace of Fine Arts. Director Philip Kaufman shot in places I think he always wanted to shoot — the Tenderloin is a huge character in the movie. Civic Center. Obscure places like Pier 70.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Vertigo (1958)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5jvQwwHQNY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A former police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with a hauntingly beautiful woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> If you’re going to watch one movie set in San Francisco, a lot of critics would argue it should be this Alfred Hitchcock classic. The plot is woven into the location in a way that few movies can rival. And if you’re wanting to really *see* the city — this film is a hit parade of gorgeous locations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>So I Married an Axe Murderer! (1993)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yto08I_IiAg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108174/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A San Francisco poet who fears commitment suspects his girlfriend may have a knack for killing off her significant others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> One KQED fan says it “captures something of the SF that I grew up in” and another calls this film “a love letter to SF.” It highlights many of the city’s most famous sights — like the Golden Gate Bridge to the Palace of Fine Arts and Alcatraz.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Bullitt (1968)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsvD806qNM8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062765/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB:\u003c/a>\u003c/strong> An all guts, no glory San Francisco cop becomes determined to find the underworld kingpin that killed the witness in his protection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> Do we need to say much more than “epic car chase scenes on San Francisco hills?” This film features tons of on-location filming, so you’ll get a big taste of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3euGQ7-brs4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107614/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>: \u003c/strong>After a bitter divorce, an actor disguises himself as a female housekeeper to spend time with his children held in custody by his former wife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> We couldn’t leave this film off the list. After all, it features one of the Bay Area’s most beloved celebrities, Robin Williams. After his death, the house featured in this film at 2640 Steiner St. became a pop-up memorial. You’ll spot everything from ordinary streets to iconic San Francisco locations throughout the film.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>The Rock (1996)\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DWu_dT0Phc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A mild-mannered chemist and an ex-con must lead the counterstrike when a rogue group of military men, led by a renegade general, threaten a nerve gas attack from Alcatraz against San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> Much of the film was shot on in and around Alcatraz, a tall order given the production crew had to do it all while tour groups milled around the site of the former federal penitentiary. Other locations in the film include the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco City Hall and Pier 39.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These 12 films are still just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to great movies filmed in the Bay Area. Other audience favorites include: Chan Is Missing, The Conversation, Blindspotting, Sorry to Bother You, The Princess Diaries, Parrots of Telegraph Hill and La Mission. Find even more suggestions on \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/KQED/status/1336822068541734912\">this X thread\u003c/a>, and on \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/KQED/posts/10157640695916191\">KQED’s Facebook page. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hey everyone, I’m Olivia Allen Price and this is Bay Curious. Let’s go!\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My name is Ben Kaiser and believe it or not I live in Atlanta, Georgia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ben visited San Francisco for the first time four years ago. And as soon as he got here, he felt a connection.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It sort of seemed like I had been there before or that I belonged there. And I just absolutely fell in love with it. And I’ve been back in four years, probably nine or ten times.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s a lot of flights between Atlanta and SFO. Now, when Ben can’t be here, he’s found a way to visit without leaving his living room.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because I don’t live in San Francisco, I want to be connected to it as much as I possibly can. And one of the ways is watching movies shot there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anything that can transport him here, even if only for a few hours. Ben’s seen a lot already, but he wants more, so he came to Bay Curious.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I asked what were some of the movies set in San Francisco that were actually shot in San Francisco, and which ones are your favorites or your recommendations?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now we don’t often delve into subjective matters here on the show, but hey, it’s the holidays, cozy season is here, and we thought maybe we could all use some solid movie recommendations. Today’s episode will sound a little bit different from what you usually hear on Bay Curious. We’ve got a panel of local cultural experts here to convince Ben and you how you should spend some time devouring the Bay Area in all its cinematic glory. This episode first aired in 2020 and has been lightly revised for you today. So throw some popcorn in the microwave, cozy up on your couch, and press play. All right, I have to start out this episode with a confession. I, Olivia Allen Price, am really bad at movies, like possibly the last person that you would want on your trivia team during the movie round. So I called in some much needed backup on this one. Here to help me out today is Peter Hartlaub. He was born and raised in the Bay Area. He’s a cultural critic with the San Francisco Chronicle, and he writes the total SF newsletter. Welcome, Peter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah. Also, I’ve got Carly Severn here. She’s a senior editor here at KQED and a Bay Curious Reporter, who you are probably familiar with. She’s also a former co-host of The Cooler Podcast and one of KQED’s resident movie obsessives. Hey Carly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hey, Olivia. Hey, Peter. Lovely to be here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So before we get into recommendations, I’m curious, what do you guys think makes San Francisco a good spot to shoot a film?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Internationally recognizable landmarks, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the topography. You can get up on a hill and see those landmarks. You can have a chase scene and get a little air. But I think the biggest thing is the weather. And it’s sort of the secret ingredient because it allows a director to convey mood. And then the city sort of becomes the mood of the director. You have the fog coming in, you have the sun coming in, subtle shifts. You can’t do that in Atlanta. You can’t do it in Houston. You can’t even really do that in LA. And I think that’s a big reason why San Francisco ends up being, you know, a top pick if you’re a director and you want to shoot like a thriller or an action film, something like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I would agree with all of that and I must kind of confess I do have a similar cinematic relationship with San Francisco as listener Ben does. I grew up watching San Francisco on screen as a kid in the middle of nowhere in England and it just seemed like the coolest place in the world to me. So I get it. I get his quest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, despite all these things, all these sort of great attributes that make, you know, San Francisco a great place to shoot, you still don’t see it in films as often as, you know, in New York or in LA or maybe even in Atlanta, even though you don’t necessarily know you’re in Atlanta when you are in Atlanta. A lot of sh movies are shot there. Why do you all think that is?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s expensive to get a hotel here, much less a bunch of hotels if you’ve got a lot of people coming. People are all crammed in together. And if you’re gonna shoot Sister Act in Noe Valley, or if you’re gonna shoot a car chase scene going through Russian Hill, the neighbors are gonna notice. And I think San Francisco, more than some of those other cities, because it’s sort of compact like that, makes it harder to film. Expensive and compact.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I think logistically you have all of these issues, but I do think there’s this thematic problem with San Francisco, it’s so in your face. It is it does end up being a character. If you want to just have like any town USA to set your story in, like San Francisco is not the place to come. It really isn’t, because you’ll end up having to do all of this narrative work bending over backwards to kind of explain why it’s a San Francisco story. That’s my take anyway.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, I do want to get on to answering Ben’s question and get to some of your San Francisco movie recommendations, but I thought we’d actually start with his because he has seen a lot of movies and he has his own thoughts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vertigo’s probably my all time favorite movie in the fact that it’s shot in San Francisco. But, you know, a lot of the real common ones, you know, I I’m not embarrassed to say the other night I watched The Rock and enjoyed The Rock. But you know, Mrs. Doubtfire, Milk, The Room, those are just, you know, some of the ones that I enjoy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it sounds like he’s definitely seen some of the classics, which I know we aren’t necessarily gonna talk as much about today in your lists, right?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vertigo, The Conversation, the Hitchcock films, the Coppola films. If I’m teaching a film class about San Francisco, they’re gonna be right in there. If I’m turning on my TV right now ’cause I just need to chill and escape a little bit, I’ve got a whole different set of films that I’m gonna pick, my favorite films, and that’s what I’m gonna pick today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A hundred percent cosign. And may I just say to Ben that he never has to be embarrassed about watching the rock. There is nothing to be embarrassed about there.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s totally cool to just love the rock and shout it from the rooftops.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right, so I asked each of you guys to bring your top three recommendations. And what we’re gonna do is go through all of those and then let Ben decide who has been the most convincing and which movie he is going to watch next. So let’s dive in, Carly. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let us know what is your number three pick and why.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Carly Severn: First of all, I want to kind of set up my thinking here. I wanted to pay homage to the classic TLC album Crazy Sexy Cool with three picks that make San Francisco look either crazy, sexy, or cool. And so I’m gonna start with cool. It is Always Be My Maybe. It is the 2019 Netflix movie directed by Nahnatchka Khan . It’s got Ali Wong as a celebrity chef, and she returns home to San Francisco, where she grew up, and she reconnects with her childhood boyfriend, Randall Park.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Always Be My Maybe\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:07:18] \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I love this movie so much. It makes San Francisco look really cool, but it also makes it look really normal. And it’s not the kind of parade of Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park Ad nauseum. Like a lot of it’s set in the outer Richmond, like the farmers market that they go to. It’s not some bougie little farmer’s market. It’s the like the civic center farmers market. So as a resident of the Bay Area, there’s such a pleasure in in kind of doing that thing where you’re looking at the screen going like, Oh, I know that. That’s really cool. I should admit that so much of it is filmed in San Francisco at these amazing locations that are like super normal and super lived in. But Vancouver, of course it’s always Vancouver. Vancouver actually doubles for a lot of the San Francisco locations. Particularly Goodluck Dim sum, which is where Ali Wong it’s one of her favorite restaurants in San Francisco. She’s it’s on Clements Street. She says it’s where she grew up eating. She really wanted that set there, but they had to double the interior in Vancouver. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Always Be My Maybe \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She thought that the restaurant would really love the fact that she had given them the shout-out, and it turns out they they kind of didn’t care. She put on Instagram that she had gone to the restaurant, and this is her caption. So the picture is of her waiting in line at this place that she’s just made super famous in a movie. And she’s like, Me, hello, I’m Ali Wong. The dim sum scene in my movie Always Be My Maybe is based on this very place where I grew up eating. Good luck, dim sum staff. We don’t give a bleep. We have no idea who you are. Get in line.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh I love that. Tough being famous in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s a lot of little things in there that are San Francisco too. Ali Wong got Dan the Automator to do the score and also write the music for the greatest San Francisco band in a movie, Hello Peril, which do three songs in the movie, including the closing credits. My only complaint, and Carly mentioned it, and I don’t want to start like negative ad campaigns here, but we’re winning Ben’s vote, and there’s only one vote. They did the exterior on Clement Street, and they’re walking down what’s supposed to be Clement Street, and it is so not Clements Street. It is so Vancouver. I love the movie, but as a location, San Francisco location movie, I find it to be kind of hit and miss.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right, well let’s get on to your number three then, mister Hartlob. What do you got?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mine is \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. I think it’s the most underrated San Francisco movie. Shot, it came out in 1978, a Philip Kaufman movie. He’s a San Francisco resident to this day. And it was a remake of a 1950s movie about alien pods that come in, they’re replacing the human race slowly, and you can’t fall asleep. And it’s there’s just a lot of intrigue and it’s a thriller and it’s horror. I love it as a San Francisco movie because a lot of directors come in and they love San Francisco, but they shoot from the same seven places. You know, Telegraph Hill, Golden Gate Bridge, Palace of Fine Arts. Philip Kaufman shot in places that I think he always wanted to shoot, that that really add to the movie. The tenderloin is a huge, huge character in the movie. Civic Center. There’s a couple of really cool shots there. Obscure places like Pier 70. Right here, we have Donald Sutherland in a very famous scene where he is revealing himself to be one of the pod people by screeching. The screech is a pig squeal, I believe played backwards. And he’s pointing, he’s pointing at you on the other side of the screen. He’s in the civic center, pointing at you. Great San Francisco movie, great horror movie, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I loved this movie. I actually was ashamed to say that I hadn’t seen it before I started prepping to have this conversation with you guys. And it starts off, you know, like a little bit cheesy, and I was like, oh god, what has Peter chosen? I couldn’t have been more wrong. It is such a great movie. I I could not agree ever with more with everything he said about the way it uses San Francisco, and particularly like a lot of like civic buildings around Civic Center, and just like a lot of it set at the the Department of Public Health, which I always like it when those guys are the good guys in the movie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, I haven’t seen this movie yet. It’s now gonna be on my list, I will say, but I am I love the idea that there’s a movie that that really highlights some of the lesser used locations around San Francisco. Because I think there is, you know, a divide between how tourists experience the city and how people who live in the city experience the city. Let’s move on to your number two picks, making our way up the list. Carly, what do you have?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, I did say I was gonna do Crazy Sexy Cool, and we’re now into the sexy phase of this pick. It is 1992’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Basic Instinct\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. And I thought long and hard before choosing this one because, you know, many parts of it haven’t aged well, let’s be honest. But it is a prime example of the 90s erotic thriller. It is made by Paul Verhoven, and the plot is ludicrous. Michael Douglas is the shady San Francisco detective. He’s investigating this bombshell crime novelist, Sharon Stone, who definitely, maybe almost certainly, killed one of her boyfriends. It’s a romp, it’s a riot, it wants to be a Hitchcock noir very, very badly. So it looks way better than it needs to, and it sounds way better than it needs to. I tried long and hard to find a safe for Bay Curious clip from this movie and failed miserably. So let’s just listen to a little bit of the trailer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Basic Instinct \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I love the way it uses San Francisco. It goes for all the classic shots, like, you know, there’s North Beach, there’s Telegraph Hill. One thing I should note is that San Francisco wasn’t always thrilled about being the kind of poster child for this movie. Sharon Stone’s character is bisexual and setting a movie with an LGBTQ woman who has a lot of sex and kills the people that she sleeps with in San Francisco in 1992 at a time when AIDS was still so prevalent and claiming so many lives. Like that’s a definite choice. And this isn’t just like 2020 hindsight. The movie was picketed at the time by LGBTQ groups for being kind of prejudice in its representation of that community. So I do feel like I should flag that. A lot of that animosity, I feel like, has gone away over time, but it’s definitely something to note. Also, I think the reason people don’t like this movie is that they take it quite seriously. And I think if you look at Paul Behoven’s back catalog, like Starship Troopers, like Total Recall, like Showgirls, I think he has a sense of humor about what he’s doing. So I think that this movie should be taken as a time capsule and with a hefty fistful of salt.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I love this film. I think it’s a great pick. I think it’s underrated. There are more helicopter shots in this movie of San Francisco, of someone driving a car around a windy road. His embracing San Francisco, making love to San Francisco with his camera budget was off the charts. So I think it’s a great pick. I really like this movie a lot.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Definitely one that makes San Francisco look sexy, Carly. Don’t you agree?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, okay, so this is where I genuinely want you guys’ opinion, because I have spent the best part of a week thinking about this question. Is San Francisco a sexy city? And I was trying to think of cities that are like off the charts sexy, you’re right. New Orleans sprang to mind. But then I’m thinking, is it just about like sweating? Is it just like the weather? Is is is that all sexiness is to me.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I gotta say, the the weather is it. You don’t sweat in San Francisco. LA sexy city. New Orleans sexy city. Miami. Miami Vice sexy city. Streets of San Francisco is not a sexy TV show.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m gonna have to disagree with you guys and you are the cultural critics here, so your your opinion has more weight than mine, but I don’t know, I see fog and I wanna cuddle. That’s my take.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I don’t know.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think Peter and I are of the same mind here where we’re just like It’s step one, guys.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s a cuddly city. I don’t know if it’s a sexy city.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I cuddle my dog. All right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right. Well let’s get into Peter, what’s your number two pick?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My number two is\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Zodiac\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It is a David Fincher film. He shot \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Game\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> first and then \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Zodiac\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in San Francisco. And second to Hitchcock, I think he’s the one who really is a great sensibility for San Francisco. It is shot also in the San Francisco Chronicle Newsroom. They shot in our publisher’s office, I believe, outside, and they used our lobby and elevator. The story goes that David Fincher came up to our newsroom, walked inside, said an expletive and said this is too much of a mess, walked outside and they recreated our newsroom pillar for pillar. You cannot tell the difference in Los Angeles. But absolutely, absolutely captures a place in time. The music choices, the visual cues, the production design, nothing’s wasted. And honestly, even though they didn’t shoot in the Chronicle Newsroom, the newsroom banter is pitch perfect. Here’s a little bit of it right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Vertigo \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that’s the way we talk. That’s the way we talk to each other. It’s all like a David Fincher or Aaron Sorkin drama.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Vertigo\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, this is this is a great film, and the plot is almost secondary in this film, a killer from the 70s and 80s who they never caught, and I’m giving away the ending, but the ending isn’t the important thing. The important thing is the mood, the city, what it felt like to be in the 1970s and be scared. I was a little kid. I remember hearing about the Zodiac Killer, and this movie brought that back so well. My favorite shot in the film, it is a visual effects shot of them in sped up time building the Transamerica Pyramid, and again, just David Fincher using every little arrow in his quiver to capture that mood of San Francisco at a particular time. It’s a fantastic location movie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I think it’s the only one on this list that is based on a true story unless there’s something I need to know about \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that’s true. And and and you know, there there’s a little bit of myth in there, but he he’s stuck a lot closer than a lot of other people do to the facts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I will say as somebody who was not living in the Bay Area at the time of Zodiac, I found \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Zodiac\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to be really helpful just to kind of I guess get a sense of what it was like to be here during that time, like you experienced, Peter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, and people remember and if people weren’t around, they know the myth. When when people come to the chronicle and ask for a tour, the two things they want to see are Herb Kane’s typewriter and the Zodiac Files. Can you show us the Zodiac files?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right, let’s get on to your top choices. These are top of your list. Let’s let’s hear it, Carly. What do you got?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay, guys, I’m reaching the climax of my crazy sexy cool plan, which I think paid off. My number one pick, it’s Crazy San Francisco. It’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Star Trek 4\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 1986. It is directed by Mr. Spark himself, Leonard Nimoy. I almost find it hard to talk about this film kind of critically because I love it so much. Just to quickly tell you about the plot, it picks up where 1984’s Search for Spark, Star Trek III left off. So the Earth of the Future is being menaced by a big alien probe. Only Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise can save the planet by time traveling back to 1980s San Francisco to bring back two Wales to talk to the alien probe and get it to leave Earth alone. You have to go with it. That’s the plot, and I can’t change that, okay? It’s not the best Star Trek movie. That’s The Wrath of Khan. That’s just undisputable. But it is the best Star Trek movie set in San Francisco with Wales, which is to say, it is the only one of that. Where do I start with how wonderful this movie is? People think I’m joking when I say that it’s the reason I moved to San Francisco, and I’m like 5% joking about that. But the other 95% is really serious. Growing up with this movie and watching San Francisco just look so fun, so warm, so crazy, so inviting. Like I wanted to be a part of that. It is totally joyous. Ben, if you’re listening and you haven’t seen Star Trek 4, don’t worry. You don’t need to watch any of the other Star Trek movies. It stands alone, it’s kind of perfect in that sense. The pleasures of watching like the quite serious crew of the Enterprise traverse San Francisco and just have a ball doing it. It’s just great. So I really wanted to play you one of the most iconic scenes, which is Kirk and Spock on a Muni bus that is traveling over the Golden Gate Bridge. Mr. Spock has to take out a young punk on the bus and get him to stop playing his music. And then this happens.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Star Trek 4\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The gag there, of course, being that Jacqueline Cezanne and Harold Robbins. Oh, I had to look up Harold Robbins, by the way. Like, they are not the giants of literature, but it’s just hilarious to think that the people of the future have deemed them to be so. I know of no movie that is like warmer and and sweeter than Star Trek Four. So, Ben, pick me, pick Star Trek Four. The choice is easy. Come on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, I don’t even wanna argue against you, and I’m gonna pick a number one, but I love this film so much. It is just a lovely movie, funny movie, finds all kinds of different ways to explore San Francisco and make it part of the gag, but in a in a funny, warm way. It’s one of the greats, one of the classics.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right, and up there with one of the greats must be your number one choice, Peter. What do you have for your number one?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2015 Pixar film Inside Out. It takes place inside the brain of tween girl coming of age, Riley. And then also outside in San Francisco, Riley has moved from I believe Minnesota to San Francisco, and she’s horrified. And what the Pixar people did with animation is so fantastic. They take San Francisco and make it like 10 to 15% more. The streets are a little narrower, parking’s a little harder, street signs are a little more incomprehensible. Fantastic, fantastic use of San Francisco. It’s more of a character in the movie than any of their other movies. They had always kind of flirted around with the Bay Area and maybe dropped San Pablo Avenue and the Incredibles. This one, they really talk about San Francisco. And you don’t see that often. You see a lot of mainstream films set in San Francisco, and San Francisco is a backdrop and it’s almost like a prop. Very few films are a commentary on the city. Last black man in San Francisco, Medicine for Melancholy, and Inside Out. Inside Out is poking fun of the city. It is completely honest. If you live here, you totally get it. If you’re not from here, you’re gonna get some of the humor, including taking just an absolute, absolute dagger stab at our Pizza.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Inside Out\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Honestly, the first time I saw this film, I didn’t love it. I liked it a lot. I’m glad I didn’t review it because I think I would have given it less than the highest rating. Upon rewatch, there’s so many little things that come out. You learn more things, and the San Francisco parts become clearer and clearer. I just think it’s a fantastic film, and it’s a fantastic San Francisco location film.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well I think Ben is gonna have a really hard time deciding between all of those very compelling pitches for for movies he should be watching this weekend. Peter Hartlob, Bay Area native, culture critic with the SF Chronicle, co-host of Total SF podcast. Thank you so much. Is there anywhere that listeners can connect with you further?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Subscribe to the Total SF newsletter, that’s where I explore the Bay Area and pass on all my favorite finds, the best hikes to take, the best tourist traps to visit, where I’m finding the best papusas to eat, and read my work at sfchronicle.com.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Awesome. And Carly, you are my longtime pop culture, I don’t know, guru. You’ve you’ve really helped me with questions over the years. So thank you for coming on the show. Where can people connect with you?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, you can find my work for Bay Curious in the podcast feed, including my two part series on the Donner Party in the archives, since we’re now feeling the wintry vibes here in the bay. You can also visit kqbd.org slash explainers to see what me and my team are up to every day in the KQED newsroom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alright, well thanks to you both. Big thanks to Ben for asking this week’s question.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Carly and Peter, I appreciate your suggestions for which San Francisco movie I should watch next. Full disclosure, three of them I’ve already seen. Those are: Always Be My Maybe, Basic Instinct and Zodiac, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. So it comes down to the other three, but I’m torn between Inside Out and Star Trek Four. But in the end, my vote is going to go to Star Trek Four. I’ve never seen a Star Trek movie, but it seems to be such a beloved film, and Carly campaigned it very, very well. So tonight, that’s what I’ll be watching.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is our last episode of the year, and I wanted to offer a warm thanks to you, our listeners, for your inspiring questions and your steadfast support. If you’re not yet a member of KQED, join us now by making a year-end donation. Details at kqed.org/slash donate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made at KQED in San Francisco by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen Price. Additional Engineering by Jim Bennett. We get extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Springer, Jen Chien,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ethan Tovin Lindsay and everyone on Team KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local. I hope you have a wonderful holiday. I’ll see ya in twenty twenty six.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This article originally published in 2020. It has been lightly updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Ben Kaiser asked for our favorite movies that are filmed and set in San Francisco. While we don’t normally take on subjective questions, we figured with cozy season upon us, it was a great time to cuddle up on the sofa with some classics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4565381532&light=true\" width=\"100%\" we asked peter hartlaub san francisco chronicle culture critic and host carly severn kqed senior editor of audience news resident movie obsessive to share their top picks on a recent bay curious podcast episode. they shared the movies would be most likely sit down watch over holidays not necessarily critically acclaimed films. our some favorites too>Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/QOhoIBkOYf0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/QOhoIBkOYf0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092007/\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> “To save Earth from an alien probe, Admiral James T. Kirk and his fugitive crew go back in time to San Francisco in 1986 to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it: humpback whales.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> This charming, lighthearted movie makes the Bay Area look undeniably fun. One KQED fan said the film was “influential in shaping how I think about the environment and is the Star Trek movie with the most heart in it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Inside Out (2015)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/yRUAzGQ3nSY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/yRUAzGQ3nSY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> “After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions — Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness — conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> Pixar has dropped Bay Area references in several animated films over the years, but “Inside Out” takes it to the next level. The film takes place in the Bay Area, and features rich and detailed imagery from around the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Zodiac (2007)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/yNncHPl1UXg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/yNncHPl1UXg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443706/\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> “In the late 1960s/early 1970s, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> “Second only to Alfred Hitchcock, director David Fincher has a great sensibility for San Francisco,” says Peter Hartlaub. “This film absolutely captures a place in time. The music choices, the visual cues, the production design. Nothing’s wasted. I was a little kid, and I remember hearing about the Zodiac killer, and this movie brought that back so well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/C0FnJDhY9-0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/C0FnJDhY9-0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4353250/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A young man searches for home in the changing city that seems to have left him behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> One of the few films on our list that is a commentary on the Bay Area, and how gentrification has decimated once vibrant Black neighborhoods. The cinematography will absolutely take your breath away. Pause the movie at any point and you might be inspired to hang the still image on your wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Basic Instinct (1992)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/4f96x3UpoaQ'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/4f96x3UpoaQ'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103772/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A violent police detective investigates a brutal murder that might involve a manipulative and seductive novelist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> “The plot is ludicrous … but it’s a romp. It’s a riot. It also looks way better than it needs to, and it sounds way better than it needs to,” says Carly Severn. “I love the way it uses San Francisco. It goes for all the classic shots — there’s North Beach, there’s Telegraph Hill.” You’ll also find lots of gorgeous helicopter shots in this one.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Always Be My Maybe (2019)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/iHBcWHY9lN4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/iHBcWHY9lN4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7374948/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> Everyone assumed Sasha and Marcus would wind up together except for Sasha and Marcus. Reconnecting after 15 years, the two start to wonder — maybe?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> “It makes San Francisco look really cool, but it also makes San Francisco look normal. A lot of it is set in the Outer Richmond,” says Carly Severn. “As a resident of the Bay Area there’s such a pleasure in looking at the screen and saying, ‘Oh, I know that! That’s cool!”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/vc_0dlmSq7I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/vc_0dlmSq7I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077745/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>: \u003c/strong>When strange seeds drift to earth from space, mysterious pods begin to grow and invade San Francisco, where they replicate the residents into emotionless automatons one body at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> “I think this is the most underrated San Francisco movie,” says Peter Hartlaub. “A lot of directors come in and they love San Francisco, but they shoot from the same seven places — Telegraph Hill, the Golden Gate Bridge, The Palace of Fine Arts. Director Philip Kaufman shot in places I think he always wanted to shoot — the Tenderloin is a huge character in the movie. Civic Center. Obscure places like Pier 70.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Vertigo (1958)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Z5jvQwwHQNY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Z5jvQwwHQNY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A former police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with a hauntingly beautiful woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> If you’re going to watch one movie set in San Francisco, a lot of critics would argue it should be this Alfred Hitchcock classic. The plot is woven into the location in a way that few movies can rival. And if you’re wanting to really *see* the city — this film is a hit parade of gorgeous locations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>So I Married an Axe Murderer! (1993)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/yto08I_IiAg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/yto08I_IiAg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108174/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A San Francisco poet who fears commitment suspects his girlfriend may have a knack for killing off her significant others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> One KQED fan says it “captures something of the SF that I grew up in” and another calls this film “a love letter to SF.” It highlights many of the city’s most famous sights — like the Golden Gate Bridge to the Palace of Fine Arts and Alcatraz.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Bullitt (1968)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/BsvD806qNM8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/BsvD806qNM8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062765/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB:\u003c/a>\u003c/strong> An all guts, no glory San Francisco cop becomes determined to find the underworld kingpin that killed the witness in his protection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> Do we need to say much more than “epic car chase scenes on San Francisco hills?” This film features tons of on-location filming, so you’ll get a big taste of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/3euGQ7-brs4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/3euGQ7-brs4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107614/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>: \u003c/strong>After a bitter divorce, an actor disguises himself as a female housekeeper to spend time with his children held in custody by his former wife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> We couldn’t leave this film off the list. After all, it features one of the Bay Area’s most beloved celebrities, Robin Williams. After his death, the house featured in this film at 2640 Steiner St. became a pop-up memorial. You’ll spot everything from ordinary streets to iconic San Francisco locations throughout the film.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>The Rock (1996)\u003c/h1>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/6DWu_dT0Phc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/6DWu_dT0Phc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plot summary from \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">IMDB\u003c/a>:\u003c/strong> A mild-mannered chemist and an ex-con must lead the counterstrike when a rogue group of military men, led by a renegade general, threaten a nerve gas attack from Alcatraz against San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why we love it:\u003c/strong> Much of the film was shot on in and around Alcatraz, a tall order given the production crew had to do it all while tour groups milled around the site of the former federal penitentiary. Other locations in the film include the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco City Hall and Pier 39.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These 12 films are still just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to great movies filmed in the Bay Area. Other audience favorites include: Chan Is Missing, The Conversation, Blindspotting, Sorry to Bother You, The Princess Diaries, Parrots of Telegraph Hill and La Mission. Find even more suggestions on \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/KQED/status/1336822068541734912\">this X thread\u003c/a>, and on \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/KQED/posts/10157640695916191\">KQED’s Facebook page. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hey everyone, I’m Olivia Allen Price and this is Bay Curious. Let’s go!\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My name is Ben Kaiser and believe it or not I live in Atlanta, Georgia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ben visited San Francisco for the first time four years ago. And as soon as he got here, he felt a connection.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It sort of seemed like I had been there before or that I belonged there. And I just absolutely fell in love with it. And I’ve been back in four years, probably nine or ten times.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s a lot of flights between Atlanta and SFO. Now, when Ben can’t be here, he’s found a way to visit without leaving his living room.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because I don’t live in San Francisco, I want to be connected to it as much as I possibly can. And one of the ways is watching movies shot there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anything that can transport him here, even if only for a few hours. Ben’s seen a lot already, but he wants more, so he came to Bay Curious.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I asked what were some of the movies set in San Francisco that were actually shot in San Francisco, and which ones are your favorites or your recommendations?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now we don’t often delve into subjective matters here on the show, but hey, it’s the holidays, cozy season is here, and we thought maybe we could all use some solid movie recommendations. Today’s episode will sound a little bit different from what you usually hear on Bay Curious. We’ve got a panel of local cultural experts here to convince Ben and you how you should spend some time devouring the Bay Area in all its cinematic glory. This episode first aired in 2020 and has been lightly revised for you today. So throw some popcorn in the microwave, cozy up on your couch, and press play. All right, I have to start out this episode with a confession. I, Olivia Allen Price, am really bad at movies, like possibly the last person that you would want on your trivia team during the movie round. So I called in some much needed backup on this one. Here to help me out today is Peter Hartlaub. He was born and raised in the Bay Area. He’s a cultural critic with the San Francisco Chronicle, and he writes the total SF newsletter. Welcome, Peter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah. Also, I’ve got Carly Severn here. She’s a senior editor here at KQED and a Bay Curious Reporter, who you are probably familiar with. She’s also a former co-host of The Cooler Podcast and one of KQED’s resident movie obsessives. Hey Carly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hey, Olivia. Hey, Peter. Lovely to be here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So before we get into recommendations, I’m curious, what do you guys think makes San Francisco a good spot to shoot a film?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Internationally recognizable landmarks, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the topography. You can get up on a hill and see those landmarks. You can have a chase scene and get a little air. But I think the biggest thing is the weather. And it’s sort of the secret ingredient because it allows a director to convey mood. And then the city sort of becomes the mood of the director. You have the fog coming in, you have the sun coming in, subtle shifts. You can’t do that in Atlanta. You can’t do it in Houston. You can’t even really do that in LA. And I think that’s a big reason why San Francisco ends up being, you know, a top pick if you’re a director and you want to shoot like a thriller or an action film, something like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I would agree with all of that and I must kind of confess I do have a similar cinematic relationship with San Francisco as listener Ben does. I grew up watching San Francisco on screen as a kid in the middle of nowhere in England and it just seemed like the coolest place in the world to me. So I get it. I get his quest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, despite all these things, all these sort of great attributes that make, you know, San Francisco a great place to shoot, you still don’t see it in films as often as, you know, in New York or in LA or maybe even in Atlanta, even though you don’t necessarily know you’re in Atlanta when you are in Atlanta. A lot of sh movies are shot there. Why do you all think that is?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s expensive to get a hotel here, much less a bunch of hotels if you’ve got a lot of people coming. People are all crammed in together. And if you’re gonna shoot Sister Act in Noe Valley, or if you’re gonna shoot a car chase scene going through Russian Hill, the neighbors are gonna notice. And I think San Francisco, more than some of those other cities, because it’s sort of compact like that, makes it harder to film. Expensive and compact.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I think logistically you have all of these issues, but I do think there’s this thematic problem with San Francisco, it’s so in your face. It is it does end up being a character. If you want to just have like any town USA to set your story in, like San Francisco is not the place to come. It really isn’t, because you’ll end up having to do all of this narrative work bending over backwards to kind of explain why it’s a San Francisco story. That’s my take anyway.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, I do want to get on to answering Ben’s question and get to some of your San Francisco movie recommendations, but I thought we’d actually start with his because he has seen a lot of movies and he has his own thoughts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vertigo’s probably my all time favorite movie in the fact that it’s shot in San Francisco. But, you know, a lot of the real common ones, you know, I I’m not embarrassed to say the other night I watched The Rock and enjoyed The Rock. But you know, Mrs. Doubtfire, Milk, The Room, those are just, you know, some of the ones that I enjoy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it sounds like he’s definitely seen some of the classics, which I know we aren’t necessarily gonna talk as much about today in your lists, right?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vertigo, The Conversation, the Hitchcock films, the Coppola films. If I’m teaching a film class about San Francisco, they’re gonna be right in there. If I’m turning on my TV right now ’cause I just need to chill and escape a little bit, I’ve got a whole different set of films that I’m gonna pick, my favorite films, and that’s what I’m gonna pick today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A hundred percent cosign. And may I just say to Ben that he never has to be embarrassed about watching the rock. There is nothing to be embarrassed about there.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s totally cool to just love the rock and shout it from the rooftops.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right, so I asked each of you guys to bring your top three recommendations. And what we’re gonna do is go through all of those and then let Ben decide who has been the most convincing and which movie he is going to watch next. So let’s dive in, Carly. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let us know what is your number three pick and why.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Carly Severn: First of all, I want to kind of set up my thinking here. I wanted to pay homage to the classic TLC album Crazy Sexy Cool with three picks that make San Francisco look either crazy, sexy, or cool. And so I’m gonna start with cool. It is Always Be My Maybe. It is the 2019 Netflix movie directed by Nahnatchka Khan . It’s got Ali Wong as a celebrity chef, and she returns home to San Francisco, where she grew up, and she reconnects with her childhood boyfriend, Randall Park.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Always Be My Maybe\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[00:07:18] \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I love this movie so much. It makes San Francisco look really cool, but it also makes it look really normal. And it’s not the kind of parade of Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park Ad nauseum. Like a lot of it’s set in the outer Richmond, like the farmers market that they go to. It’s not some bougie little farmer’s market. It’s the like the civic center farmers market. So as a resident of the Bay Area, there’s such a pleasure in in kind of doing that thing where you’re looking at the screen going like, Oh, I know that. That’s really cool. I should admit that so much of it is filmed in San Francisco at these amazing locations that are like super normal and super lived in. But Vancouver, of course it’s always Vancouver. Vancouver actually doubles for a lot of the San Francisco locations. Particularly Goodluck Dim sum, which is where Ali Wong it’s one of her favorite restaurants in San Francisco. She’s it’s on Clements Street. She says it’s where she grew up eating. She really wanted that set there, but they had to double the interior in Vancouver. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Always Be My Maybe \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She thought that the restaurant would really love the fact that she had given them the shout-out, and it turns out they they kind of didn’t care. She put on Instagram that she had gone to the restaurant, and this is her caption. So the picture is of her waiting in line at this place that she’s just made super famous in a movie. And she’s like, Me, hello, I’m Ali Wong. The dim sum scene in my movie Always Be My Maybe is based on this very place where I grew up eating. Good luck, dim sum staff. We don’t give a bleep. We have no idea who you are. Get in line.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh I love that. Tough being famous in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s a lot of little things in there that are San Francisco too. Ali Wong got Dan the Automator to do the score and also write the music for the greatest San Francisco band in a movie, Hello Peril, which do three songs in the movie, including the closing credits. My only complaint, and Carly mentioned it, and I don’t want to start like negative ad campaigns here, but we’re winning Ben’s vote, and there’s only one vote. They did the exterior on Clement Street, and they’re walking down what’s supposed to be Clement Street, and it is so not Clements Street. It is so Vancouver. I love the movie, but as a location, San Francisco location movie, I find it to be kind of hit and miss.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right, well let’s get on to your number three then, mister Hartlob. What do you got?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mine is \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. I think it’s the most underrated San Francisco movie. Shot, it came out in 1978, a Philip Kaufman movie. He’s a San Francisco resident to this day. And it was a remake of a 1950s movie about alien pods that come in, they’re replacing the human race slowly, and you can’t fall asleep. And it’s there’s just a lot of intrigue and it’s a thriller and it’s horror. I love it as a San Francisco movie because a lot of directors come in and they love San Francisco, but they shoot from the same seven places. You know, Telegraph Hill, Golden Gate Bridge, Palace of Fine Arts. Philip Kaufman shot in places that I think he always wanted to shoot, that that really add to the movie. The tenderloin is a huge, huge character in the movie. Civic Center. There’s a couple of really cool shots there. Obscure places like Pier 70. Right here, we have Donald Sutherland in a very famous scene where he is revealing himself to be one of the pod people by screeching. The screech is a pig squeal, I believe played backwards. And he’s pointing, he’s pointing at you on the other side of the screen. He’s in the civic center, pointing at you. Great San Francisco movie, great horror movie, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I loved this movie. I actually was ashamed to say that I hadn’t seen it before I started prepping to have this conversation with you guys. And it starts off, you know, like a little bit cheesy, and I was like, oh god, what has Peter chosen? I couldn’t have been more wrong. It is such a great movie. I I could not agree ever with more with everything he said about the way it uses San Francisco, and particularly like a lot of like civic buildings around Civic Center, and just like a lot of it set at the the Department of Public Health, which I always like it when those guys are the good guys in the movie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, I haven’t seen this movie yet. It’s now gonna be on my list, I will say, but I am I love the idea that there’s a movie that that really highlights some of the lesser used locations around San Francisco. Because I think there is, you know, a divide between how tourists experience the city and how people who live in the city experience the city. Let’s move on to your number two picks, making our way up the list. Carly, what do you have?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, I did say I was gonna do Crazy Sexy Cool, and we’re now into the sexy phase of this pick. It is 1992’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Basic Instinct\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. And I thought long and hard before choosing this one because, you know, many parts of it haven’t aged well, let’s be honest. But it is a prime example of the 90s erotic thriller. It is made by Paul Verhoven, and the plot is ludicrous. Michael Douglas is the shady San Francisco detective. He’s investigating this bombshell crime novelist, Sharon Stone, who definitely, maybe almost certainly, killed one of her boyfriends. It’s a romp, it’s a riot, it wants to be a Hitchcock noir very, very badly. So it looks way better than it needs to, and it sounds way better than it needs to. I tried long and hard to find a safe for Bay Curious clip from this movie and failed miserably. So let’s just listen to a little bit of the trailer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Basic Instinct \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I love the way it uses San Francisco. It goes for all the classic shots, like, you know, there’s North Beach, there’s Telegraph Hill. One thing I should note is that San Francisco wasn’t always thrilled about being the kind of poster child for this movie. Sharon Stone’s character is bisexual and setting a movie with an LGBTQ woman who has a lot of sex and kills the people that she sleeps with in San Francisco in 1992 at a time when AIDS was still so prevalent and claiming so many lives. Like that’s a definite choice. And this isn’t just like 2020 hindsight. The movie was picketed at the time by LGBTQ groups for being kind of prejudice in its representation of that community. So I do feel like I should flag that. A lot of that animosity, I feel like, has gone away over time, but it’s definitely something to note. Also, I think the reason people don’t like this movie is that they take it quite seriously. And I think if you look at Paul Behoven’s back catalog, like Starship Troopers, like Total Recall, like Showgirls, I think he has a sense of humor about what he’s doing. So I think that this movie should be taken as a time capsule and with a hefty fistful of salt.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I love this film. I think it’s a great pick. I think it’s underrated. There are more helicopter shots in this movie of San Francisco, of someone driving a car around a windy road. His embracing San Francisco, making love to San Francisco with his camera budget was off the charts. So I think it’s a great pick. I really like this movie a lot.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Definitely one that makes San Francisco look sexy, Carly. Don’t you agree?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, okay, so this is where I genuinely want you guys’ opinion, because I have spent the best part of a week thinking about this question. Is San Francisco a sexy city? And I was trying to think of cities that are like off the charts sexy, you’re right. New Orleans sprang to mind. But then I’m thinking, is it just about like sweating? Is it just like the weather? Is is is that all sexiness is to me.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I gotta say, the the weather is it. You don’t sweat in San Francisco. LA sexy city. New Orleans sexy city. Miami. Miami Vice sexy city. Streets of San Francisco is not a sexy TV show.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m gonna have to disagree with you guys and you are the cultural critics here, so your your opinion has more weight than mine, but I don’t know, I see fog and I wanna cuddle. That’s my take.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I don’t know.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think Peter and I are of the same mind here where we’re just like It’s step one, guys.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s a cuddly city. I don’t know if it’s a sexy city.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I cuddle my dog. All right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right. Well let’s get into Peter, what’s your number two pick?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My number two is\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Zodiac\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It is a David Fincher film. He shot \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Game\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> first and then \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Zodiac\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in San Francisco. And second to Hitchcock, I think he’s the one who really is a great sensibility for San Francisco. It is shot also in the San Francisco Chronicle Newsroom. They shot in our publisher’s office, I believe, outside, and they used our lobby and elevator. The story goes that David Fincher came up to our newsroom, walked inside, said an expletive and said this is too much of a mess, walked outside and they recreated our newsroom pillar for pillar. You cannot tell the difference in Los Angeles. But absolutely, absolutely captures a place in time. The music choices, the visual cues, the production design, nothing’s wasted. And honestly, even though they didn’t shoot in the Chronicle Newsroom, the newsroom banter is pitch perfect. Here’s a little bit of it right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Vertigo \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that’s the way we talk. That’s the way we talk to each other. It’s all like a David Fincher or Aaron Sorkin drama.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Vertigo\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, this is this is a great film, and the plot is almost secondary in this film, a killer from the 70s and 80s who they never caught, and I’m giving away the ending, but the ending isn’t the important thing. The important thing is the mood, the city, what it felt like to be in the 1970s and be scared. I was a little kid. I remember hearing about the Zodiac Killer, and this movie brought that back so well. My favorite shot in the film, it is a visual effects shot of them in sped up time building the Transamerica Pyramid, and again, just David Fincher using every little arrow in his quiver to capture that mood of San Francisco at a particular time. It’s a fantastic location movie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I think it’s the only one on this list that is based on a true story unless there’s something I need to know about \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that’s true. And and and you know, there there’s a little bit of myth in there, but he he’s stuck a lot closer than a lot of other people do to the facts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I will say as somebody who was not living in the Bay Area at the time of Zodiac, I found \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Zodiac\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to be really helpful just to kind of I guess get a sense of what it was like to be here during that time, like you experienced, Peter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, and people remember and if people weren’t around, they know the myth. When when people come to the chronicle and ask for a tour, the two things they want to see are Herb Kane’s typewriter and the Zodiac Files. Can you show us the Zodiac files?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right, let’s get on to your top choices. These are top of your list. Let’s let’s hear it, Carly. What do you got?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay, guys, I’m reaching the climax of my crazy sexy cool plan, which I think paid off. My number one pick, it’s Crazy San Francisco. It’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Star Trek 4\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 1986. It is directed by Mr. Spark himself, Leonard Nimoy. I almost find it hard to talk about this film kind of critically because I love it so much. Just to quickly tell you about the plot, it picks up where 1984’s Search for Spark, Star Trek III left off. So the Earth of the Future is being menaced by a big alien probe. Only Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise can save the planet by time traveling back to 1980s San Francisco to bring back two Wales to talk to the alien probe and get it to leave Earth alone. You have to go with it. That’s the plot, and I can’t change that, okay? It’s not the best Star Trek movie. That’s The Wrath of Khan. That’s just undisputable. But it is the best Star Trek movie set in San Francisco with Wales, which is to say, it is the only one of that. Where do I start with how wonderful this movie is? People think I’m joking when I say that it’s the reason I moved to San Francisco, and I’m like 5% joking about that. But the other 95% is really serious. Growing up with this movie and watching San Francisco just look so fun, so warm, so crazy, so inviting. Like I wanted to be a part of that. It is totally joyous. Ben, if you’re listening and you haven’t seen Star Trek 4, don’t worry. You don’t need to watch any of the other Star Trek movies. It stands alone, it’s kind of perfect in that sense. The pleasures of watching like the quite serious crew of the Enterprise traverse San Francisco and just have a ball doing it. It’s just great. So I really wanted to play you one of the most iconic scenes, which is Kirk and Spock on a Muni bus that is traveling over the Golden Gate Bridge. Mr. Spock has to take out a young punk on the bus and get him to stop playing his music. And then this happens.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Star Trek 4\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The gag there, of course, being that Jacqueline Cezanne and Harold Robbins. Oh, I had to look up Harold Robbins, by the way. Like, they are not the giants of literature, but it’s just hilarious to think that the people of the future have deemed them to be so. I know of no movie that is like warmer and and sweeter than Star Trek Four. So, Ben, pick me, pick Star Trek Four. The choice is easy. Come on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, I don’t even wanna argue against you, and I’m gonna pick a number one, but I love this film so much. It is just a lovely movie, funny movie, finds all kinds of different ways to explore San Francisco and make it part of the gag, but in a in a funny, warm way. It’s one of the greats, one of the classics.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All right, and up there with one of the greats must be your number one choice, Peter. What do you have for your number one?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2015 Pixar film Inside Out. It takes place inside the brain of tween girl coming of age, Riley. And then also outside in San Francisco, Riley has moved from I believe Minnesota to San Francisco, and she’s horrified. And what the Pixar people did with animation is so fantastic. They take San Francisco and make it like 10 to 15% more. The streets are a little narrower, parking’s a little harder, street signs are a little more incomprehensible. Fantastic, fantastic use of San Francisco. It’s more of a character in the movie than any of their other movies. They had always kind of flirted around with the Bay Area and maybe dropped San Pablo Avenue and the Incredibles. This one, they really talk about San Francisco. And you don’t see that often. You see a lot of mainstream films set in San Francisco, and San Francisco is a backdrop and it’s almost like a prop. Very few films are a commentary on the city. Last black man in San Francisco, Medicine for Melancholy, and Inside Out. Inside Out is poking fun of the city. It is completely honest. If you live here, you totally get it. If you’re not from here, you’re gonna get some of the humor, including taking just an absolute, absolute dagger stab at our Pizza.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip from Inside Out\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Honestly, the first time I saw this film, I didn’t love it. I liked it a lot. I’m glad I didn’t review it because I think I would have given it less than the highest rating. Upon rewatch, there’s so many little things that come out. You learn more things, and the San Francisco parts become clearer and clearer. I just think it’s a fantastic film, and it’s a fantastic San Francisco location film.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well I think Ben is gonna have a really hard time deciding between all of those very compelling pitches for for movies he should be watching this weekend. Peter Hartlob, Bay Area native, culture critic with the SF Chronicle, co-host of Total SF podcast. Thank you so much. Is there anywhere that listeners can connect with you further?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Hartlaub:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Subscribe to the Total SF newsletter, that’s where I explore the Bay Area and pass on all my favorite finds, the best hikes to take, the best tourist traps to visit, where I’m finding the best papusas to eat, and read my work at sfchronicle.com.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Awesome. And Carly, you are my longtime pop culture, I don’t know, guru. You’ve you’ve really helped me with questions over the years. So thank you for coming on the show. Where can people connect with you?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, you can find my work for Bay Curious in the podcast feed, including my two part series on the Donner Party in the archives, since we’re now feeling the wintry vibes here in the bay. You can also visit kqbd.org slash explainers to see what me and my team are up to every day in the KQED newsroom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alright, well thanks to you both. Big thanks to Ben for asking this week’s question.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Carly and Peter, I appreciate your suggestions for which San Francisco movie I should watch next. Full disclosure, three of them I’ve already seen. Those are: Always Be My Maybe, Basic Instinct and Zodiac, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. So it comes down to the other three, but I’m torn between Inside Out and Star Trek Four. But in the end, my vote is going to go to Star Trek Four. I’ve never seen a Star Trek movie, but it seems to be such a beloved film, and Carly campaigned it very, very well. So tonight, that’s what I’ll be watching.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is our last episode of the year, and I wanted to offer a warm thanks to you, our listeners, for your inspiring questions and your steadfast support. If you’re not yet a member of KQED, join us now by making a year-end donation. Details at kqed.org/slash donate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made at KQED in San Francisco by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen Price. Additional Engineering by Jim Bennett. We get extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Springer, Jen Chien,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ethan Tovin Lindsay and everyone on Team KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local. I hope you have a wonderful holiday. I’ll see ya in twenty twenty six.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, December 17, 2025…\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Newsom administration confirmed it’s backtracking on a plan to indefinitely revoke thousands of commercial drivers licenses held by immigrants. That’s welcome news to the drivers and their families.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As Jewish communities around the globe struggle to comprehend the deadly mass shooting at Australia’s Bondi Beach, in Kern County, the losses are hitting especially close to home. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>CA Cancels Plan To Revoke Thousands Of Commercial Drivers Licenses \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration is backtracking on a plan to indefinitely revoke 17,000 commercial drivers licenses held by immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/11/13/g-s1-97665/california-revoke-commercial-drivers-licenses-immigrants\">original plan came after harsh criticism from the Trump administration\u003c/a> about California and other states granting licenses to people in the country illegally. The issue was thrust into the public’s consciousness in August, when a tractor-trailer driver not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amarjit Singh lives in the Bay Area in Livermore. Three years ago, he borrowed money from relatives and invested all his savings for a $30,000 down payment on a $160,000 truck. It’s his ticket to the American Dream. “Yeah it’s like a home, you know it’s an office. Business is on the road,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Estimates are that roughly 150,000 Sikh men drive trucks nationwide. Trucking is a major source of employment for this community with roots in Punjab, India. But last month, Singh and thousands of other drivers got a message from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The agency planned to revoke their commercial drivers licenses, and most would have had no recourse. But now the DMV officials say they will start reissuing those licenses. This comes as a big relief for Singh, but only after weeks of sleepless nights. He worried that he wouldn’t be able to support his wife and two kids, or make the $4,000 monthly payments on his truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Heavy Hearts In Kern County Following Australia Mass Shooting\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An accused gunman in Sydney’s Bondi Beach massacre was \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/12/17/g-s1-102571/gunman-bondi-beach-charged-murder\">charged with 59 offenses including 15 charges of murder on Wednesday\u003c/a>, as hundreds of mourners gathered in Sydney to begin funerals for the victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two shooters slaughtered 15 people on Sunday in an antisemitic mass shooting targeting Jews celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, and more than 20 other people are still being treated in hospitals. All of those killed by the gunmen who have been identified so far were Jewish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Kern County, the losses are hitting particularly loud. “We’re just devastated. We’re broken. We’re just broken to pieces,” said Esther Schlanger. She’s the co-director of the Chabad of Bakersfield. Her brother-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, was killed in the attack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schlanger said because of the attack, her Chabad has taken safety precautions. But Hanukkah will go on. “We’re heartbroken, but we still are going to light the menorah, which I just did with my children, and we’re going to eat the latkes and cry at the same time,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, December 17, 2025…\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Newsom administration confirmed it’s backtracking on a plan to indefinitely revoke thousands of commercial drivers licenses held by immigrants. That’s welcome news to the drivers and their families.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As Jewish communities around the globe struggle to comprehend the deadly mass shooting at Australia’s Bondi Beach, in Kern County, the losses are hitting especially close to home. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>CA Cancels Plan To Revoke Thousands Of Commercial Drivers Licenses \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration is backtracking on a plan to indefinitely revoke 17,000 commercial drivers licenses held by immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/11/13/g-s1-97665/california-revoke-commercial-drivers-licenses-immigrants\">original plan came after harsh criticism from the Trump administration\u003c/a> about California and other states granting licenses to people in the country illegally. The issue was thrust into the public’s consciousness in August, when a tractor-trailer driver not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amarjit Singh lives in the Bay Area in Livermore. Three years ago, he borrowed money from relatives and invested all his savings for a $30,000 down payment on a $160,000 truck. It’s his ticket to the American Dream. “Yeah it’s like a home, you know it’s an office. Business is on the road,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Estimates are that roughly 150,000 Sikh men drive trucks nationwide. Trucking is a major source of employment for this community with roots in Punjab, India. But last month, Singh and thousands of other drivers got a message from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The agency planned to revoke their commercial drivers licenses, and most would have had no recourse. But now the DMV officials say they will start reissuing those licenses. This comes as a big relief for Singh, but only after weeks of sleepless nights. He worried that he wouldn’t be able to support his wife and two kids, or make the $4,000 monthly payments on his truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Heavy Hearts In Kern County Following Australia Mass Shooting\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An accused gunman in Sydney’s Bondi Beach massacre was \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/12/17/g-s1-102571/gunman-bondi-beach-charged-murder\">charged with 59 offenses including 15 charges of murder on Wednesday\u003c/a>, as hundreds of mourners gathered in Sydney to begin funerals for the victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two shooters slaughtered 15 people on Sunday in an antisemitic mass shooting targeting Jews celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, and more than 20 other people are still being treated in hospitals. All of those killed by the gunmen who have been identified so far were Jewish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Kern County, the losses are hitting particularly loud. “We’re just devastated. We’re broken. We’re just broken to pieces,” said Esther Schlanger. She’s the co-director of the Chabad of Bakersfield. Her brother-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, was killed in the attack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schlanger said because of the attack, her Chabad has taken safety precautions. But Hanukkah will go on. “We’re heartbroken, but we still are going to light the menorah, which I just did with my children, and we’re going to eat the latkes and cry at the same time,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "death-robotaxis-and-a-cat-named-kitkat",
"title": "Death, Robotaxis, and a Cat Named KitKat",
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"headTitle": "Death, Robotaxis, and a Cat Named KitKat | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When KitKat, a beloved bodega cat, was killed by a Waymo in San Francisco in late October of this year, the incident quickly went viral. It ignited grief and outrage. It also renewed scrutiny of autonomous vehicles. But in a city where hundreds of animals are hit by vehicles each year, why did this incident — and this particular cat — hit such a nerve? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We hear from Oscar Palma, the first reporter on the scene, about what unfolded the night KitKat was killed. Then, Mission Local managing editor Joe Eskenazi and KQED reporter Sydney Johnson explore the limits of autonomous vehicles and why one cat’s death resonated so deeply in a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5106693547\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/sjohnson\">Sydney Johnson\u003c/a>, reporter at KQED \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/author/oscarp/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oscar Palma\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, reporter at Mission Local\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/joe-eskenazi/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Joe Eskenazi\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, managing editor at Mission Local\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2025/10/kitkat-mission-liquor-store-mascot-and-16th-st-ambassador-killed-on-monday/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat, liquor store mascot and ‘16th St. ambassador,’ killed — allegedly by Waymo\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Oscar Palma, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mission Local\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12062777/san-francisco-supervisor-calls-for-robotaxi-reform-after-waymo-kills-neighborhood-cat\">San Francisco Supervisor Calls for Robotaxi Reform After Waymo Kills Neighborhood Cat \u003c/a>\u003ci>— Sydney Johnson, \u003ci>KQED\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/us/waymo-kit-kat-san-francisco.html\">How Kit Kat Was Killed: Video Shows What a Waymo Couldn’t See \u003c/a>— Heather Knight, \u003ci>The New York Times \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/12/30/1222083720/driverless-cars-gm-cruise-waymo-san-francisco-accidents\">Driverless car startup Cruise’s no good, terrible year\u003c/a> — Dara Kerr, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/11/14/cruise-fine-investigation-dragging-robotaxi/\">Cruise admits lying to feds about dragging woman in San Francisco\u003c/a> — Kevin Truong, \u003ci>The San Francisco Standard\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2025/12/waymo-confirms-its-car-hit-dog-in-western-addition/\">Waymo hits dog in S.F. weeks after killing Mission bodega cat\u003c/a> — Kelly Waldron, \u003ci>Mission Local\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kron4.com/news/technology-ai/dog-hit-by-waymo-in-sf-put-down-by-family-after-suffering-severe-pelvic-trauma/\">Dog hit by Waymo in SF put down by family after suffering ‘severe pelvic trauma’\u003c/a> — Alex Baker, \u003ci>KRON4\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.economist.com/business/2025/11/24/the-self-driving-taxi-revolution-begins-at-last\">The self-driving taxi revolution begins at last\u003c/a> — \u003ci>The Economist \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Crowd Chanting “KitKat! KitKat!” ]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last month, KQED reporter Sydney Johnson covered an event in her neighborhood, that was part memorial service, part rally, in San Francisco’s Mission District. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dozens of residents gathered in front of Randa’s Market to remember KitKat, the store’s beloved 9-year-old tabby cat. KitKat was more than a bodega cat — he was known as the Mayor of 16th street. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There were dozens of people there, you know, chitchatting. uh, many of them lived in the neighborhood and were giving each other hugs and, you know, talking about memories that they had of walking by the market after a late night and petting KitKat or, you know, maybe on their way to work and, and giving him a little scratch, uh, when they popped in for a drink in the morning.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat’s death was particularly devastating for the neighborhood, because it wasn’t old age, or sickness, or even human cruelty that killed him. It was a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s the autonomous rideshare service, also known as a robotaxi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’d say the vibe of this event was, you know, both. Mournful and, and somber. but also really angry and, and focused.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat was struck and killed in late October, and in the days after, locals mourned him by turning the tree in front of Randa’s Market into a makeshift shrine. Someone had attached a framed photo of KitKat to the tree, and others adorned the frame with flowers and a cat-sized crown. The base of the tree was overflowing with candles, bouquets, handwritten messages, and of course, cat treats. People even scattered KitKat’s namesake candy around the shrine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the time the rally happened a week later, grief had become anger. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But our local supervisor, you know, took some of that anger and outrage and. Really just said, this is a moment where we have to think about these technologies that are being deployed all around us \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder at the rally. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jackie Fielder at Rally]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The future of autonomous vehicles should be decided by people, not tech, oligarchs and their politicians. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience Member: Yes!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jackie Fielder: Thank you all so much and rest in peace, KitKat. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat’s death sparked nationwide outrage. He’s become the face of resistance to robotaxis, AI, and the tech industry as a whole. In death, he’s become a viral sensation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip from Australia News]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a new social justice movement in San Francisco, sparked by the death of a beloved neighborhood cat that was killed by a driverless car.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip from Inside Edition] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now fans of the adored feline are taking to social media demanding hashtag justice for Kit Kat. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip from Tiktok]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People are mourning a true pillar of the community and who they call the mayor of 16th Street,\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo, meanwhile, recently announced its expansion across California. The company has plans to deploy its robotaxis in San Diego, Sacramento, and lots in between. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so it kind of became, you know, more than just this cat who died. This is actually now something where people who have been, you know, nervous or uneasy about autonomous vehicles, uh, really had a moment where they were saying, Hey, let’s actually think about how we can avoid this kind of tragedy, uh, especially if it could get even worse in the future.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo says its autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers — at least, they have a lower crash rate. But these cars aren’t infallible. KitKat may be the most viral victim of a robotaxi crash, but he’s not the only one. His death has raised some major concerns about safety, especially as Waymo and other robotaxi companies vie to compete with human-driven rideshares. The loss of this little bodega cat might have sparked a movement … but can these giant tech companies really be reined in? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymos, and robotaxis as a whole, have been pretty controversial since they started hitting streets in 2020. While robotaxi supporters praise the convenience and supposed safety of self-driving cars, detractors have real concerns. They threaten jobs, they disrupt traffic, they can’t make the same decisions that a human driver can, which makes them a nuisance at best and at worst, a public safety hazard. Plus, they represent the tech industry’s rapid encroachment on local communities. Like we covered in one of our very first episodes of this show, it’s what makes Waymos so easy to vandalize: they’re a physical, tangible outlet for this collective anxiety and rage against Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Los Angeles, Dodgers fans celebrated their team’s World Series win by spray painting and smashing Waymos.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Videos of the vandalized cars went viral, with captions like “Justice for KitKat” and “Revenge for the bodega cat.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why did this particular incident kick off such a firestorm? To unpack that, we need to return to the night KitKat was killed. What do we know, and what don’t we know, about what happened? Time to open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX typing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happened to KitKat? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX tab sequence]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cb>Oscar Palma, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Every time I go to the Roxy, I would always make a point to stop by and then say hi to Kit Kat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Oscar Palma, a reporter at Mission Local, a news site that covers San Francisco. He was one of the first journalists to break the news of KitKat’s death. The Roxie is a local theater that shows indie and arthouse films. This area is a bustling social hub — there are bars, restaurants, comedy clubs and KitKat lived in the heart of it, in the corner store right next to the Roxie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People were laughing and saying we call him the boss because he was checking on everyone, making sure that everything was working.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the night of the incident, KitKat was doing what he did best: sauntering up and down the street, greeting bar patrons.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was Monday night. I believe it was 11:40 pm and two witnesses who came up to me and they say, “Hey, we saw everything that happened.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They came out of the bar, and so they saw the Waymo was picking up some passengers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> While the Waymo idled at the curb, KitKat darted under the hood, settling in front of the car’s front tire. A bystander noticed the cat, and rushed over to lure him out. She recounted the night in an interview with the New York Times. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Meg Brigman in TikTok Clip]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I bent down, his ears were back. He looked very stressed. I said, “KitKat, come here, come here.” Being so close to the car, I didn’t expect it to drive away.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oscar said that KitKat stood in front of the tire for about seven seconds, before he got spooked and retreated further under the car. The Waymo didn’t appear to sense KitKat, or the person crouched in front of the car. Instead, as surveillance footage obtained by the New York Times shows, the Waymo pulled forward. Here’s Oscar again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so he ran over, um, half of his body. And so Kit Kat, um, made it on its own back to the sidewalk. But, um, our witnesses saw everything and they describe a very awful sight to see. Uh, pretty much seeing the last moment of KitKat being alive, and they say that the Waymo never really stopped.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat dragged himself to the sidewalk, but was gravely injured and spitting blood. A bartender called KitKat’s owner and rushed the cat to a nearby animal hospital, where he died.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oscar said that Mission Local requested a copy of Waymo’s footage from the accident, but the company didn’t respond. Here’s Joe Eskenazi, managing editor at Mission Local. He joined us for the conversation with Oscar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So clearly, you know, the witnesses told Oscar that the cat had been idling in front of the car for seven seconds. Waymo simply said, the cat darted underneath the car. Both of those things can be true, but by omitting the first part, you’re not telling the full story. So, you know, presumably it’s all on film.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo touts its safety record as significantly better than human drivers. The company reported that throughout June 2025, Waymos had 80% fewer injury-causing crashes. But autonomous vehicles aren’t able to replicate human thinking and reasoning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For their story, Mission Local spoke with several experts on autonomous vehicles.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the problem, is that human beings have what’s known as object permanence. When you hide your face from a baby, you know the baby is surprised to see that you can take your \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">fa\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> hand away and, and your face is still there. But you know, children who are even very young understand that your face doesn’t disappear. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo cars don’t know that. Waymo cars don’t have the computational power, as amazing as they are, to know that the cat that, uh, was in front of the car for seven seconds and then walked under the car where there are not sensors is still a factor. You can’t really have the sensors on the bottom of the car because they get dirtied up so quickly. If you’ve ever touched the tires on your car, they’re really dirty, so they get dirtied up so quickly that you can’t really have sensors there. So, you know, these cars are susceptible to small objects like this being underneath the car.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happened to KitKat is not a one-off incident. Earlier this month, just weeks after a Waymo killed KitKat, another Waymo ran over an unleashed dog in San Francisco, about ten minutes from where KitKat was struck and killed. The dog’s owners decided to put him down due to severe pelvic injuries. Waymo reportedly offered to assist with the dog’s medical expenses, and offered to cover the cost of adopting a new pet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> People can say that human beings don’t drive as well as these vehicles. But we can also say that we’re seeing a pattern here of the autonomous vehicles being susceptible to small objects underneath them or even large objects underneath them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A similar incident happened with Cruise just a few years ago. If this is your first time hearing about Cruise, it’s probably because the company shut down last year.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cruise was the robotaxi service owned by General Motors. They were actually the first company to receive California’s Driverless Deployment Permit, in 2022. They had a modest fleet, a couple hundred cars in San Francisco, and planned to expand to other cities. They were actually bigger than Waymo back then. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until, in 2023, when one of Cruise’s driverless cars hit a pedestrian. Instead of stopping, the car ran her over and continued driving, dragging her for about 20 feet until it finally stopped at a curb , still on top of the pedestrian. She was critically injured in the crash. The California DMV revoked Cruise’s license and ordered the company to suspend operations in the state. That was in late 2023 and Waymo opened to the public in California in 2024. But KitKat’s death rehashes the same concerns that people had over Cruise. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These incidents are, you know, kind of like, uh, a broad daylight shooting in a suburban neighborhood. It’s something that is unusual. We have seen that the cars are not infallible and what’s worse there, there are holes in the technology. Not knowing there’s a person, or in this case, a small animal under your car, strikes me as something that you could improve on. It strikes me as a safety hazard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Waymo’s been facing a bit of a PR crisis over KitKat’s death. It doesn’t help that on the same day of the accident, just hours before KitKat was fatally struck by a Waymo, the company’s co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana appeared on TechCrunch’s Disrupt stage. This exchange went viral: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip from TechCrunch’s Disrupt stage]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kirsten Korosec: Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Takedra Mawakana: I think that society will, I think the challenge for us is making sure that society has a high enough bar on safety that companies are held to. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, after those comments, the company faced immense backlash when news of KitKat’s death broke. Waymo made a statement four days after KitKat died. They apologized and said they’d make a donation to a local animal rights organization in KitKat’s honor. But skepticism about the safety risks of autonomous technology has only continued to build. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So those are all things to be concerned about, regardless of how many cats are struck by human drivers every day. And regardless of how safe Waymo is, by and large. Uh, frankly, I have to tell you, I’ve been more than a little disappointed by the simplistic whataboutism of people who simply wanna shrug their shoulders and say ‘They’re safer than humans. What do you want?’ I think that it could do better. I think that both the corporation and the vehicles could do better.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it turns out a lot of other people feel the same way.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What sparks anger and movements is not always what you think it is. In this case, yes, a cat was run over, which happens all the time, every day. But you know, this strikes me as being, uh, a tipping point type situation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This backlash is coming at a time when Waymo is really expanding. In parts of the Bay Area and Southern California, they’re even allowed on freeways. Last month, amid the KitKat backlash, Waymo launched in Miami, with plans to roll out its cars in ten more cities over the next year. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s clear there’s a lot of buzz around Waymos. But the critics are gaining some steam, thanks to the tragedy that befell KitKat. And that brings us back to the rally, in front of Randa’s Market, a week after KitKat was killed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Crowd Chanting “KitKat, KitKat, KitKat”]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how are organizers, advocates, and politicians using the momentum from this incident to push back against the ever-expanding reach of self-driving car companies?\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a new tab … but first, a quick break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok we’re back. Let’s open a new tab.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX keyboard sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat the tech martyr\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX tab sequence]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About a week after KitKat’s death, San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder hosted the memorial rally for KitKat, in front of the corner store he’d called home for years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Memorial Rally for KitKat]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Supervisor Jackie Fielder: Local communities deserve a say over our streets and over the technologies that affect us. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Supervisor Fielder was one of several speakers at the makeshift podium. An officer from the local Teamsters chapter raised concerns about autonomous vehicles taking human jobs. A public transit advocate questioned why the city was investing so heavily in robotaxis, while San Francisco’s trains and buses face a huge funding deficit. And a few spoke out about the safety issues. They came from different backgrounds, but shared the same point: why didn’t their community get a say in allowing Waymos?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s how Justin Dole, a bar owner and president of the organization Small Business Forward, put it when it was his turn to speak at the rally: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Memorial Rally for KitKat]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003ci>Justin Dole: \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think that’s why people have been so profoundly disturbed by KitKat’s death. The mayor of this space, as he was known, was taken from us by a technology that none of us asked for and crucially, to the point of this resolution, none of us consented to. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And that’s at the heart of a new legislative push from Supervisor Fielder. KQED reporter Sydney Johnson, who we heard from at the top of the episode, has been reporting on the rideshare industry here in California. She actually lives in the Mission — KitKat’s home turf. Sydney’s going to walk us through this legislative battle. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There have been no shortage of, you know, efforts in Sacramento to try and carve out laws around robotaxis, which is this really relatively new technology and, and area of law also. And a lot of those have faced, you know, lobbying and have just had a pretty difficult time getting through the legislature.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the rally, our local supervisor, Jackie Fielder, along with other community and labor leaders were calling on state lawmakers to revisit legislation that was actually proposed last year, but failed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sydney’s talking about SB-915, a California senate bill that would have allowed local cities to vote on whether to allow robotaxis on their streets. Supporters said that it gives residents more agency. Critics of the bill said that it would make rides between different towns or municipalities an absolute nightmare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of the biggest, uh, points of opposition to that piece of legislation was that it would create this, you know, really messy patchwork of different policies where maybe you have a robo taxi that can get you around one tiny city, but you can’t actually get to your destination, which is two towns over because this city in the middle voted against it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So that ultimately failed. It did not get the support it needed to pass. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">owever, there was still a lot of interest in finding a way to still provide some, you know, democratic framework for this technology, which currently for robotaxi companies, they only need to receive permits from the state level in order to operate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they’ve received that for multiple cities and California and a few other places around the country. But these lawmakers who were supporting, uh, this law last year and, and now Jackie Fielder who’s asking lawmakers to revisit it, wanna see the effort not completely die since it didn’t work around city to city regulation, but are hoping to kind of broaden that a little bit at looking at the county level. So having the county of San Francisco or the county of Alameda, you know, these various kind of larger jurisdictions, voters there can decide whether robo taxis can operate on their streets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a city supervisor, Jackie Fielder can’t introduce state legislation herself, but she’s still using this moment to shine a spotlight on the issue.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung in tape:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you talk about how lawmakers and public transit advocates are using this momentum from this cat’s death to push for new action around Waymo’s and other Robotaxis? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What’s interesting about this story and about Kit Kat is it seems to have gotten bigger than California, and certainly bigger than San Francisco where this happened. Um. There were stories about KitKat in the Washington Post, in the New York Times. We were seeing stories on CNN about this cat who was killed by a Waymo and just the heartbreak that came as a result of that. And so local lawmakers here in San Francisco really latched onto that. You know, we, we see this with all different types of legislation when there’s a viral moment and a lawmaker might try to attach some sort of policy idea to that moment and, and, you know, kind of ride some of the energy and life that that story has via that virality.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, and we certainly saw that here with KitKat and how supervisor Jackie Fielder said, Hey, we need to start talking about this again before things get worse. But, you know, some tragedy has already happened here. And voters, at least who were showing up to this rally, uh, were pretty open about the fact that they wanted to see some sort of either restrictions or at least have the option to vote on whether Waymo’s can operate and, and roam the streets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, It still remains to be seen if lawmakers in Sacramento are going to pick this up. Um, but certainly here there’s been some, uh, support bubbling for it. I think that it has really just become a symbol for so many different things. Whether it’s concerns about AI taking jobs or safety, or sustainability with transit. You know, I think a lot of people have been able to impress their message onto KitKat’s death.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These critiques of automated technology have been around for decades. But it’s only recently that they’ve taken a hold in mainstream, public conversation as autonomous vehicles advance and spread across the country. Waymo may be leading the race, but competitors are sprinting to cash in on the robotaxi wars. Uber, Zoox, Nvdia, Tesla, and like, every car manufacturer are all investing in and testing and launching their own versions of a driverless ride service.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Joe, the managing editor at Mission Local, says KitKat became a flashpoint for these larger tensions playing out in San Francisco and beyond.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Just on the base level, this, what you’re describing here is a proxy war between the technology companies and the Teamsters unions. And so you can basically see, you know, which politicians are more aligned with the big money tech companies. And Waymo is owned by Google, which, you know, uh, draws a lot of water in this town to use the Big Lebowski line.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, they’re, they are, they are big players, you know, with, with no small amount of lobbying money and no small amount of interest in this state and in this county San Francisco. Is it possible that in the future this legislation could be adopted? I get the sad feeling that something terrible needs to happen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s Oscar, the Mission Local reporter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah, I mean, this is something that I, I, I think about just in my everyday life, um, like a cyclist usually has to die for the city to build the proper infrastructure, um, in a section of the city. And it’s, it’s sad that we have to get to that point to, to see the changes that a lot of us want to see.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So clearly, KitKat has become a symbol of something bigger — let’s talk about what his death means. How about one last tab? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX keyboard typing] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat’s legacy \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SFX tab sequence]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This month, Randa’s Market welcomed a new bodega cat: Coco, a white six-month-old kitten, with a black nose and ink-tipped ears. She was a gift, from a neighbor to the store’s owner. But KitKat hasn’t been forgotten — if anything, he’s remembered as a folk hero, who represented a version of San Francisco that doesn’t exist anymore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean, talking to people who lived on 16th Street, talking to bartenders around there, you know, people who just feel like their community has been changing, you know, for decades really, but especially in the last few years it’s felt like so much has really accelerated and just seeing this clash of this hyper new technology. These like, you know, sleek driverless cars, quite literally crush a bodega cat is just such a stark image of seeing, you know, this sort of San Francisco that wants to resist all the ways that technology is now quite literally displacing people, animals, you know, a, a city that was once affordable to artists and creatives and teachers and, you know, working class folks.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This whole story really kind of characterized I think some of that disappointment and sadness that people have about having no say or no control over the quote unquote progress that’s happening around them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, knowing that, there’s a real ironic twist to this story. KitKat, the adorable face of resistance to encroaching tech, is now also a meme coin. And yes for the uninitiated, that’s a cryptocurrency thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So now you know there is an altar on 16th Street for KitKat, but he will forever be immortalized on the blockchain as a crypto coin also.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KITKATCOIN launched without the knowledge of KitKat’s actual family, but the store owner’s son has since taken over. He says he donated the first $10,000 of proceeds to an animal rights group. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I believe that it hit its peak on Halloween, which was just a few days after KitKat’s death. Um, but pretty shortly after that the value of this crypto coin just plummeted. Uh, which if you’ve followed these meme coins before is a pretty typical story. But I think with this, you know, it really. Just sort of epitomizes the virality of this story and how it took on a life of its own online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, there’s KitKat the tech martyr and KitKat the meme coin, immortalized on the blockchain. In the Mission, locals just remember KitKat the bodega cat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think people would remember him first as a friend, uh, second as a member of that community. I think KitKat encompassed everything that this, like one block of resistance,in the mission, um, against, um, waves of gentrification. I always think about this block in a very romantic old school San Francisco way. You have this like feeling of like people mourning this loss together and this like very, um, deep connection that everyone had with each other.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, like I went to report the next night. Uh, and I went to Delirium and people were taking shots for KitKat. You know, like Delirium is right next to the liquor store. if you had been there, you would’ve seen the mood in the bar that night. Everyone was really quiet. Everyone was really sad, and people were taking shots for KitKat left and \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So pour one out for KitKat. We’d usually close all these tabs, but today? Let’s leave his open a little longer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And by the way — Close All Tabs is taking a break for the holidays. We’ll see you in the new year, with brand new deep dives! For now, we’re wrapping up this year — in honor of our friend KitKat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva, and edited by Chris Egusa.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs producer is Maya Cueva, Chris Hambrick is our editor. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor, and composed our theme song and credits music. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brendan Willard is our audio engineer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, and I know it’s podcast cliche, but if you like these deep dives, and want us to keep making more, it would really help us out if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. Also, we want to hear from you! Email us CloseAllTabs@kqed.org. Follow us on instagram at “close all tabs pod.” Or TikTok at “close all tabs.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Death, Robotaxis, and a Cat Named KitKat | KQED",
"description": "When KitKat, a beloved bodega cat, was killed by a Waymo in San Francisco in late October of this year, the incident quickly went viral. It ignited grief and outrage. It also renewed scrutiny of autonomous vehicles. But in a city where hundreds of animals are hit by vehicles each year, why did this incident — and this particular cat — hit such a nerve? We hear from Oscar Palma, the first reporter on the scene, about what unfolded the night KitKat was killed. Then, Mission Local managing editor Joe Eskenazi and KQED reporter Sydney Johnson explore the limits of autonomous vehicles and why one cat’s death resonated so deeply in a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco.",
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"socialDescription": "When KitKat, a beloved bodega cat, was killed by a Waymo in San Francisco in late October of this year, the incident quickly went viral. It ignited grief and outrage. It also renewed scrutiny of autonomous vehicles. But in a city where hundreds of animals are hit by vehicles each year, why did this incident — and this particular cat — hit such a nerve? We hear from Oscar Palma, the first reporter on the scene, about what unfolded the night KitKat was killed. Then, Mission Local managing editor Joe Eskenazi and KQED reporter Sydney Johnson explore the limits of autonomous vehicles and why one cat’s death resonated so deeply in a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When KitKat, a beloved bodega cat, was killed by a Waymo in San Francisco in late October of this year, the incident quickly went viral. It ignited grief and outrage. It also renewed scrutiny of autonomous vehicles. But in a city where hundreds of animals are hit by vehicles each year, why did this incident — and this particular cat — hit such a nerve? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We hear from Oscar Palma, the first reporter on the scene, about what unfolded the night KitKat was killed. Then, Mission Local managing editor Joe Eskenazi and KQED reporter Sydney Johnson explore the limits of autonomous vehicles and why one cat’s death resonated so deeply in a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5106693547\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/sjohnson\">Sydney Johnson\u003c/a>, reporter at KQED \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/author/oscarp/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oscar Palma\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, reporter at Mission Local\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/joe-eskenazi/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Joe Eskenazi\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, managing editor at Mission Local\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2025/10/kitkat-mission-liquor-store-mascot-and-16th-st-ambassador-killed-on-monday/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat, liquor store mascot and ‘16th St. ambassador,’ killed — allegedly by Waymo\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Oscar Palma, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mission Local\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12062777/san-francisco-supervisor-calls-for-robotaxi-reform-after-waymo-kills-neighborhood-cat\">San Francisco Supervisor Calls for Robotaxi Reform After Waymo Kills Neighborhood Cat \u003c/a>\u003ci>— Sydney Johnson, \u003ci>KQED\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/us/waymo-kit-kat-san-francisco.html\">How Kit Kat Was Killed: Video Shows What a Waymo Couldn’t See \u003c/a>— Heather Knight, \u003ci>The New York Times \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/12/30/1222083720/driverless-cars-gm-cruise-waymo-san-francisco-accidents\">Driverless car startup Cruise’s no good, terrible year\u003c/a> — Dara Kerr, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/11/14/cruise-fine-investigation-dragging-robotaxi/\">Cruise admits lying to feds about dragging woman in San Francisco\u003c/a> — Kevin Truong, \u003ci>The San Francisco Standard\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2025/12/waymo-confirms-its-car-hit-dog-in-western-addition/\">Waymo hits dog in S.F. weeks after killing Mission bodega cat\u003c/a> — Kelly Waldron, \u003ci>Mission Local\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kron4.com/news/technology-ai/dog-hit-by-waymo-in-sf-put-down-by-family-after-suffering-severe-pelvic-trauma/\">Dog hit by Waymo in SF put down by family after suffering ‘severe pelvic trauma’\u003c/a> — Alex Baker, \u003ci>KRON4\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.economist.com/business/2025/11/24/the-self-driving-taxi-revolution-begins-at-last\">The self-driving taxi revolution begins at last\u003c/a> — \u003ci>The Economist \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Crowd Chanting “KitKat! KitKat!” ]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last month, KQED reporter Sydney Johnson covered an event in her neighborhood, that was part memorial service, part rally, in San Francisco’s Mission District. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dozens of residents gathered in front of Randa’s Market to remember KitKat, the store’s beloved 9-year-old tabby cat. KitKat was more than a bodega cat — he was known as the Mayor of 16th street. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There were dozens of people there, you know, chitchatting. uh, many of them lived in the neighborhood and were giving each other hugs and, you know, talking about memories that they had of walking by the market after a late night and petting KitKat or, you know, maybe on their way to work and, and giving him a little scratch, uh, when they popped in for a drink in the morning.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat’s death was particularly devastating for the neighborhood, because it wasn’t old age, or sickness, or even human cruelty that killed him. It was a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s the autonomous rideshare service, also known as a robotaxi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’d say the vibe of this event was, you know, both. Mournful and, and somber. but also really angry and, and focused.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat was struck and killed in late October, and in the days after, locals mourned him by turning the tree in front of Randa’s Market into a makeshift shrine. Someone had attached a framed photo of KitKat to the tree, and others adorned the frame with flowers and a cat-sized crown. The base of the tree was overflowing with candles, bouquets, handwritten messages, and of course, cat treats. People even scattered KitKat’s namesake candy around the shrine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the time the rally happened a week later, grief had become anger. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But our local supervisor, you know, took some of that anger and outrage and. Really just said, this is a moment where we have to think about these technologies that are being deployed all around us \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder at the rally. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jackie Fielder at Rally]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The future of autonomous vehicles should be decided by people, not tech, oligarchs and their politicians. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience Member: Yes!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jackie Fielder: Thank you all so much and rest in peace, KitKat. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat’s death sparked nationwide outrage. He’s become the face of resistance to robotaxis, AI, and the tech industry as a whole. In death, he’s become a viral sensation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip from Australia News]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a new social justice movement in San Francisco, sparked by the death of a beloved neighborhood cat that was killed by a driverless car.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip from Inside Edition] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now fans of the adored feline are taking to social media demanding hashtag justice for Kit Kat. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip from Tiktok]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People are mourning a true pillar of the community and who they call the mayor of 16th Street,\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo, meanwhile, recently announced its expansion across California. The company has plans to deploy its robotaxis in San Diego, Sacramento, and lots in between. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so it kind of became, you know, more than just this cat who died. This is actually now something where people who have been, you know, nervous or uneasy about autonomous vehicles, uh, really had a moment where they were saying, Hey, let’s actually think about how we can avoid this kind of tragedy, uh, especially if it could get even worse in the future.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo says its autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers — at least, they have a lower crash rate. But these cars aren’t infallible. KitKat may be the most viral victim of a robotaxi crash, but he’s not the only one. His death has raised some major concerns about safety, especially as Waymo and other robotaxi companies vie to compete with human-driven rideshares. The loss of this little bodega cat might have sparked a movement … but can these giant tech companies really be reined in? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymos, and robotaxis as a whole, have been pretty controversial since they started hitting streets in 2020. While robotaxi supporters praise the convenience and supposed safety of self-driving cars, detractors have real concerns. They threaten jobs, they disrupt traffic, they can’t make the same decisions that a human driver can, which makes them a nuisance at best and at worst, a public safety hazard. Plus, they represent the tech industry’s rapid encroachment on local communities. Like we covered in one of our very first episodes of this show, it’s what makes Waymos so easy to vandalize: they’re a physical, tangible outlet for this collective anxiety and rage against Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Los Angeles, Dodgers fans celebrated their team’s World Series win by spray painting and smashing Waymos.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Videos of the vandalized cars went viral, with captions like “Justice for KitKat” and “Revenge for the bodega cat.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why did this particular incident kick off such a firestorm? To unpack that, we need to return to the night KitKat was killed. What do we know, and what don’t we know, about what happened? Time to open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX typing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happened to KitKat? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX tab sequence]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cb>Oscar Palma, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Every time I go to the Roxy, I would always make a point to stop by and then say hi to Kit Kat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Oscar Palma, a reporter at Mission Local, a news site that covers San Francisco. He was one of the first journalists to break the news of KitKat’s death. The Roxie is a local theater that shows indie and arthouse films. This area is a bustling social hub — there are bars, restaurants, comedy clubs and KitKat lived in the heart of it, in the corner store right next to the Roxie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People were laughing and saying we call him the boss because he was checking on everyone, making sure that everything was working.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the night of the incident, KitKat was doing what he did best: sauntering up and down the street, greeting bar patrons.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was Monday night. I believe it was 11:40 pm and two witnesses who came up to me and they say, “Hey, we saw everything that happened.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They came out of the bar, and so they saw the Waymo was picking up some passengers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> While the Waymo idled at the curb, KitKat darted under the hood, settling in front of the car’s front tire. A bystander noticed the cat, and rushed over to lure him out. She recounted the night in an interview with the New York Times. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Meg Brigman in TikTok Clip]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I bent down, his ears were back. He looked very stressed. I said, “KitKat, come here, come here.” Being so close to the car, I didn’t expect it to drive away.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oscar said that KitKat stood in front of the tire for about seven seconds, before he got spooked and retreated further under the car. The Waymo didn’t appear to sense KitKat, or the person crouched in front of the car. Instead, as surveillance footage obtained by the New York Times shows, the Waymo pulled forward. Here’s Oscar again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so he ran over, um, half of his body. And so Kit Kat, um, made it on its own back to the sidewalk. But, um, our witnesses saw everything and they describe a very awful sight to see. Uh, pretty much seeing the last moment of KitKat being alive, and they say that the Waymo never really stopped.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat dragged himself to the sidewalk, but was gravely injured and spitting blood. A bartender called KitKat’s owner and rushed the cat to a nearby animal hospital, where he died.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oscar said that Mission Local requested a copy of Waymo’s footage from the accident, but the company didn’t respond. Here’s Joe Eskenazi, managing editor at Mission Local. He joined us for the conversation with Oscar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So clearly, you know, the witnesses told Oscar that the cat had been idling in front of the car for seven seconds. Waymo simply said, the cat darted underneath the car. Both of those things can be true, but by omitting the first part, you’re not telling the full story. So, you know, presumably it’s all on film.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo touts its safety record as significantly better than human drivers. The company reported that throughout June 2025, Waymos had 80% fewer injury-causing crashes. But autonomous vehicles aren’t able to replicate human thinking and reasoning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For their story, Mission Local spoke with several experts on autonomous vehicles.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the problem, is that human beings have what’s known as object permanence. When you hide your face from a baby, you know the baby is surprised to see that you can take your \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">fa\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> hand away and, and your face is still there. But you know, children who are even very young understand that your face doesn’t disappear. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waymo cars don’t know that. Waymo cars don’t have the computational power, as amazing as they are, to know that the cat that, uh, was in front of the car for seven seconds and then walked under the car where there are not sensors is still a factor. You can’t really have the sensors on the bottom of the car because they get dirtied up so quickly. If you’ve ever touched the tires on your car, they’re really dirty, so they get dirtied up so quickly that you can’t really have sensors there. So, you know, these cars are susceptible to small objects like this being underneath the car.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happened to KitKat is not a one-off incident. Earlier this month, just weeks after a Waymo killed KitKat, another Waymo ran over an unleashed dog in San Francisco, about ten minutes from where KitKat was struck and killed. The dog’s owners decided to put him down due to severe pelvic injuries. Waymo reportedly offered to assist with the dog’s medical expenses, and offered to cover the cost of adopting a new pet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> People can say that human beings don’t drive as well as these vehicles. But we can also say that we’re seeing a pattern here of the autonomous vehicles being susceptible to small objects underneath them or even large objects underneath them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A similar incident happened with Cruise just a few years ago. If this is your first time hearing about Cruise, it’s probably because the company shut down last year.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cruise was the robotaxi service owned by General Motors. They were actually the first company to receive California’s Driverless Deployment Permit, in 2022. They had a modest fleet, a couple hundred cars in San Francisco, and planned to expand to other cities. They were actually bigger than Waymo back then. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until, in 2023, when one of Cruise’s driverless cars hit a pedestrian. Instead of stopping, the car ran her over and continued driving, dragging her for about 20 feet until it finally stopped at a curb , still on top of the pedestrian. She was critically injured in the crash. The California DMV revoked Cruise’s license and ordered the company to suspend operations in the state. That was in late 2023 and Waymo opened to the public in California in 2024. But KitKat’s death rehashes the same concerns that people had over Cruise. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These incidents are, you know, kind of like, uh, a broad daylight shooting in a suburban neighborhood. It’s something that is unusual. We have seen that the cars are not infallible and what’s worse there, there are holes in the technology. Not knowing there’s a person, or in this case, a small animal under your car, strikes me as something that you could improve on. It strikes me as a safety hazard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Waymo’s been facing a bit of a PR crisis over KitKat’s death. It doesn’t help that on the same day of the accident, just hours before KitKat was fatally struck by a Waymo, the company’s co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana appeared on TechCrunch’s Disrupt stage. This exchange went viral: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip from TechCrunch’s Disrupt stage]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kirsten Korosec: Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Takedra Mawakana: I think that society will, I think the challenge for us is making sure that society has a high enough bar on safety that companies are held to. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, after those comments, the company faced immense backlash when news of KitKat’s death broke. Waymo made a statement four days after KitKat died. They apologized and said they’d make a donation to a local animal rights organization in KitKat’s honor. But skepticism about the safety risks of autonomous technology has only continued to build. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So those are all things to be concerned about, regardless of how many cats are struck by human drivers every day. And regardless of how safe Waymo is, by and large. Uh, frankly, I have to tell you, I’ve been more than a little disappointed by the simplistic whataboutism of people who simply wanna shrug their shoulders and say ‘They’re safer than humans. What do you want?’ I think that it could do better. I think that both the corporation and the vehicles could do better.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it turns out a lot of other people feel the same way.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What sparks anger and movements is not always what you think it is. In this case, yes, a cat was run over, which happens all the time, every day. But you know, this strikes me as being, uh, a tipping point type situation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This backlash is coming at a time when Waymo is really expanding. In parts of the Bay Area and Southern California, they’re even allowed on freeways. Last month, amid the KitKat backlash, Waymo launched in Miami, with plans to roll out its cars in ten more cities over the next year. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s clear there’s a lot of buzz around Waymos. But the critics are gaining some steam, thanks to the tragedy that befell KitKat. And that brings us back to the rally, in front of Randa’s Market, a week after KitKat was killed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Crowd Chanting “KitKat, KitKat, KitKat”]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how are organizers, advocates, and politicians using the momentum from this incident to push back against the ever-expanding reach of self-driving car companies?\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a new tab … but first, a quick break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok we’re back. Let’s open a new tab.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX keyboard sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat the tech martyr\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX tab sequence]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About a week after KitKat’s death, San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder hosted the memorial rally for KitKat, in front of the corner store he’d called home for years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Memorial Rally for KitKat]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Supervisor Jackie Fielder: Local communities deserve a say over our streets and over the technologies that affect us. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Supervisor Fielder was one of several speakers at the makeshift podium. An officer from the local Teamsters chapter raised concerns about autonomous vehicles taking human jobs. A public transit advocate questioned why the city was investing so heavily in robotaxis, while San Francisco’s trains and buses face a huge funding deficit. And a few spoke out about the safety issues. They came from different backgrounds, but shared the same point: why didn’t their community get a say in allowing Waymos?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s how Justin Dole, a bar owner and president of the organization Small Business Forward, put it when it was his turn to speak at the rally: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Memorial Rally for KitKat]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003ci>Justin Dole: \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think that’s why people have been so profoundly disturbed by KitKat’s death. The mayor of this space, as he was known, was taken from us by a technology that none of us asked for and crucially, to the point of this resolution, none of us consented to. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And that’s at the heart of a new legislative push from Supervisor Fielder. KQED reporter Sydney Johnson, who we heard from at the top of the episode, has been reporting on the rideshare industry here in California. She actually lives in the Mission — KitKat’s home turf. Sydney’s going to walk us through this legislative battle. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There have been no shortage of, you know, efforts in Sacramento to try and carve out laws around robotaxis, which is this really relatively new technology and, and area of law also. And a lot of those have faced, you know, lobbying and have just had a pretty difficult time getting through the legislature.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the rally, our local supervisor, Jackie Fielder, along with other community and labor leaders were calling on state lawmakers to revisit legislation that was actually proposed last year, but failed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sydney’s talking about SB-915, a California senate bill that would have allowed local cities to vote on whether to allow robotaxis on their streets. Supporters said that it gives residents more agency. Critics of the bill said that it would make rides between different towns or municipalities an absolute nightmare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of the biggest, uh, points of opposition to that piece of legislation was that it would create this, you know, really messy patchwork of different policies where maybe you have a robo taxi that can get you around one tiny city, but you can’t actually get to your destination, which is two towns over because this city in the middle voted against it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So that ultimately failed. It did not get the support it needed to pass. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">owever, there was still a lot of interest in finding a way to still provide some, you know, democratic framework for this technology, which currently for robotaxi companies, they only need to receive permits from the state level in order to operate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they’ve received that for multiple cities and California and a few other places around the country. But these lawmakers who were supporting, uh, this law last year and, and now Jackie Fielder who’s asking lawmakers to revisit it, wanna see the effort not completely die since it didn’t work around city to city regulation, but are hoping to kind of broaden that a little bit at looking at the county level. So having the county of San Francisco or the county of Alameda, you know, these various kind of larger jurisdictions, voters there can decide whether robo taxis can operate on their streets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a city supervisor, Jackie Fielder can’t introduce state legislation herself, but she’s still using this moment to shine a spotlight on the issue.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung in tape:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you talk about how lawmakers and public transit advocates are using this momentum from this cat’s death to push for new action around Waymo’s and other Robotaxis? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What’s interesting about this story and about Kit Kat is it seems to have gotten bigger than California, and certainly bigger than San Francisco where this happened. Um. There were stories about KitKat in the Washington Post, in the New York Times. We were seeing stories on CNN about this cat who was killed by a Waymo and just the heartbreak that came as a result of that. And so local lawmakers here in San Francisco really latched onto that. You know, we, we see this with all different types of legislation when there’s a viral moment and a lawmaker might try to attach some sort of policy idea to that moment and, and, you know, kind of ride some of the energy and life that that story has via that virality.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, and we certainly saw that here with KitKat and how supervisor Jackie Fielder said, Hey, we need to start talking about this again before things get worse. But, you know, some tragedy has already happened here. And voters, at least who were showing up to this rally, uh, were pretty open about the fact that they wanted to see some sort of either restrictions or at least have the option to vote on whether Waymo’s can operate and, and roam the streets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, It still remains to be seen if lawmakers in Sacramento are going to pick this up. Um, but certainly here there’s been some, uh, support bubbling for it. I think that it has really just become a symbol for so many different things. Whether it’s concerns about AI taking jobs or safety, or sustainability with transit. You know, I think a lot of people have been able to impress their message onto KitKat’s death.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These critiques of automated technology have been around for decades. But it’s only recently that they’ve taken a hold in mainstream, public conversation as autonomous vehicles advance and spread across the country. Waymo may be leading the race, but competitors are sprinting to cash in on the robotaxi wars. Uber, Zoox, Nvdia, Tesla, and like, every car manufacturer are all investing in and testing and launching their own versions of a driverless ride service.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Joe, the managing editor at Mission Local, says KitKat became a flashpoint for these larger tensions playing out in San Francisco and beyond.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Eskenazi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Just on the base level, this, what you’re describing here is a proxy war between the technology companies and the Teamsters unions. And so you can basically see, you know, which politicians are more aligned with the big money tech companies. And Waymo is owned by Google, which, you know, uh, draws a lot of water in this town to use the Big Lebowski line.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, they’re, they are, they are big players, you know, with, with no small amount of lobbying money and no small amount of interest in this state and in this county San Francisco. Is it possible that in the future this legislation could be adopted? I get the sad feeling that something terrible needs to happen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s Oscar, the Mission Local reporter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah, I mean, this is something that I, I, I think about just in my everyday life, um, like a cyclist usually has to die for the city to build the proper infrastructure, um, in a section of the city. And it’s, it’s sad that we have to get to that point to, to see the changes that a lot of us want to see.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So clearly, KitKat has become a symbol of something bigger — let’s talk about what his death means. How about one last tab? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[SFX keyboard typing] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KitKat’s legacy \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SFX tab sequence]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This month, Randa’s Market welcomed a new bodega cat: Coco, a white six-month-old kitten, with a black nose and ink-tipped ears. She was a gift, from a neighbor to the store’s owner. But KitKat hasn’t been forgotten — if anything, he’s remembered as a folk hero, who represented a version of San Francisco that doesn’t exist anymore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean, talking to people who lived on 16th Street, talking to bartenders around there, you know, people who just feel like their community has been changing, you know, for decades really, but especially in the last few years it’s felt like so much has really accelerated and just seeing this clash of this hyper new technology. These like, you know, sleek driverless cars, quite literally crush a bodega cat is just such a stark image of seeing, you know, this sort of San Francisco that wants to resist all the ways that technology is now quite literally displacing people, animals, you know, a, a city that was once affordable to artists and creatives and teachers and, you know, working class folks.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This whole story really kind of characterized I think some of that disappointment and sadness that people have about having no say or no control over the quote unquote progress that’s happening around them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, knowing that, there’s a real ironic twist to this story. KitKat, the adorable face of resistance to encroaching tech, is now also a meme coin. And yes for the uninitiated, that’s a cryptocurrency thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So now you know there is an altar on 16th Street for KitKat, but he will forever be immortalized on the blockchain as a crypto coin also.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KITKATCOIN launched without the knowledge of KitKat’s actual family, but the store owner’s son has since taken over. He says he donated the first $10,000 of proceeds to an animal rights group. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sydney Johnson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I believe that it hit its peak on Halloween, which was just a few days after KitKat’s death. Um, but pretty shortly after that the value of this crypto coin just plummeted. Uh, which if you’ve followed these meme coins before is a pretty typical story. But I think with this, you know, it really. Just sort of epitomizes the virality of this story and how it took on a life of its own online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, there’s KitKat the tech martyr and KitKat the meme coin, immortalized on the blockchain. In the Mission, locals just remember KitKat the bodega cat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Oscar Palma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think people would remember him first as a friend, uh, second as a member of that community. I think KitKat encompassed everything that this, like one block of resistance,in the mission, um, against, um, waves of gentrification. I always think about this block in a very romantic old school San Francisco way. You have this like feeling of like people mourning this loss together and this like very, um, deep connection that everyone had with each other.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, like I went to report the next night. Uh, and I went to Delirium and people were taking shots for KitKat. You know, like Delirium is right next to the liquor store. if you had been there, you would’ve seen the mood in the bar that night. Everyone was really quiet. Everyone was really sad, and people were taking shots for KitKat left and \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So pour one out for KitKat. We’d usually close all these tabs, but today? Let’s leave his open a little longer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And by the way — Close All Tabs is taking a break for the holidays. We’ll see you in the new year, with brand new deep dives! For now, we’re wrapping up this year — in honor of our friend KitKat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva, and edited by Chris Egusa.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs producer is Maya Cueva, Chris Hambrick is our editor. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor, and composed our theme song and credits music. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brendan Willard is our audio engineer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, and I know it’s podcast cliche, but if you like these deep dives, and want us to keep making more, it would really help us out if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. Also, we want to hear from you! Email us CloseAllTabs@kqed.org. Follow us on instagram at “close all tabs pod.” Or TikTok at “close all tabs.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, December 16, 2025…\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the last six weeks, children who crossed the US-Mexico border alone have been inexplicably stuck in federal custody at shelters across the country. The Trump administration has virtually stopped releasing these kids to their families and loved ones. It’s not saying why. But sources in the government agency that’s in charge of unaccompanied kids — and lawyers who help them — say they’ve never seen anything like this. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal authorities say they’ve \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-new-years-eve-turtle-liberation-arrests-a84a26742ecbd5fe813ab959162268d2\">thwarted a plot to bomb five locations\u003c/a> around Southern California on New Year’s Eve. The FBI has arrested four people who they say belong to an extremist anti-government group. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After a Supreme Court decision that allowed authorities to penalize people for sleeping outdoors, the City of Fresno was one of the first to enact its own anti-camping law. Now, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/local-news/2025-12-12/fresno-attorney-mounts-federal-legal-fight-against-citys-anti-camping-law\">a class action lawsuit\u003c/a> is challenging its legality.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Trump Administration Not Releasing Migrant Children To Families, Sponsors\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For more than a month, children who crossed the US-Mexico border alone have been inexplicably stuck in federal custody at shelters across the country. The Trump administration has all but stopped releasing these kids to their families and loved ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But sources in the government agency that’s in charge of unaccompanied kids — and lawyers who help them — tell The California Newsroom’s Mark Betancourt, they’ve never seen anything like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These kids crossed the border without a parent or guardian. And when they’re apprehended by immigration officials, they’re handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, who generally puts them in group shelters across the country. In California, there are about 30 of these shelters, with about 300 kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of these kids actually came to the U.S. to join their parents or other family members. In immigration speak these adults are called sponsors, and they have to be vetted by the government to make sure they’re safe before the kids are released to them. But a source inside ORR said that since the start of November, the government has pretty much stopped releasing kids to sponsors, even those who had cleared the vetting process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the month of October, before this apparent moratorium, the government was releasing about four kids per day to sponsors – that’s like 115 kids for the month. But over the last month and a half, they’ve released only four kids total to sponsors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\">UPDATE: In a response received Wednesday after this episode aired, the Administration for Children and Families, which oversees ORR, said the office “has not issued a moratorium” on sponsor releases, but alluded to “enhanced vetting policies” for adults who will be caring for the children after their release. “ORR continues to discharge children to vetted sponsors when all statutory and safety requirements are fully met and when release is assessed to be appropriate given the child’s individual needs and circumstances,” ACF told the California Newsroom. “Each case is evaluated individually, and decisions are made based on child welfare best practices.”\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"Page-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-new-years-eve-turtle-liberation-arrests-a84a26742ecbd5fe813ab959162268d2\">\u003cstrong>4 Charged With Plotting New Year’s Eve Attacks In Southern California\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Federal authorities said Monday that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvcrnews.org/local-news/2025-12-15/fbi-stops-new-years-eve-bomb-plot-in-lucerne-valley\">they foiled a plot to bomb multiple sites of two U.S. companies\u003c/a> on New Year’s Eve in Southern California after arresting members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The four suspects were arrested Friday in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference. Officials showed reporters surveillance aerial footage of the suspects moving a large black object in the desert to a table. Officials said they were able to make the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the criminal complaint, the four suspects named are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. They are all from the Los Angeles area, Essayli said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials did not describe a motive but said they are members of an offshoot of a group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The group calls for decolonization, tribal sovereignty and “the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” according to the criminal complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArtP-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/local-news/2025-12-12/fresno-attorney-mounts-federal-legal-fight-against-citys-anti-camping-law\">\u003cstrong>Fresno Attorney Mounts Federal Legal Fight Against City’s Anti-Camping Law\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A Fresno-based attorney is mounting a class action lawsuit against the city over its anti-encampment law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney Kevin Little is challenging the constitutionality of the City of Fresno’s anti-encampment policy in the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of California. The lawsuit, filed last week, names Wickey TwoHands and Joseph Quinney as plaintiffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TwoHands made headlines earlier this year as the first unhoused person to be prosecuted by the City Attorney’s Office under the new law. TwoHands’ case was thrown out of court after a judge ruled that \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://fresnoland.org/2025/04/10/two-hands/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">city prosecutors violated TwoHands’ right\u003c/a> to a speedy trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit alleges that the camping ban violates unhoused people’s civil rights. And it accuses authorities of discriminating against the elderly and the disabled when making arrests. “People’s mere existence is becoming illegal and this is now even worse for the unhoused community, which demographics show is disproportionately elderly and disabled,” Little said. Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz responded that he looks forward to taking this case to the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, December 16, 2025…\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the last six weeks, children who crossed the US-Mexico border alone have been inexplicably stuck in federal custody at shelters across the country. The Trump administration has virtually stopped releasing these kids to their families and loved ones. It’s not saying why. But sources in the government agency that’s in charge of unaccompanied kids — and lawyers who help them — say they’ve never seen anything like this. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal authorities say they’ve \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-new-years-eve-turtle-liberation-arrests-a84a26742ecbd5fe813ab959162268d2\">thwarted a plot to bomb five locations\u003c/a> around Southern California on New Year’s Eve. The FBI has arrested four people who they say belong to an extremist anti-government group. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After a Supreme Court decision that allowed authorities to penalize people for sleeping outdoors, the City of Fresno was one of the first to enact its own anti-camping law. Now, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/local-news/2025-12-12/fresno-attorney-mounts-federal-legal-fight-against-citys-anti-camping-law\">a class action lawsuit\u003c/a> is challenging its legality.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Trump Administration Not Releasing Migrant Children To Families, Sponsors\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For more than a month, children who crossed the US-Mexico border alone have been inexplicably stuck in federal custody at shelters across the country. The Trump administration has all but stopped releasing these kids to their families and loved ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But sources in the government agency that’s in charge of unaccompanied kids — and lawyers who help them — tell The California Newsroom’s Mark Betancourt, they’ve never seen anything like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These kids crossed the border without a parent or guardian. And when they’re apprehended by immigration officials, they’re handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, who generally puts them in group shelters across the country. In California, there are about 30 of these shelters, with about 300 kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of these kids actually came to the U.S. to join their parents or other family members. In immigration speak these adults are called sponsors, and they have to be vetted by the government to make sure they’re safe before the kids are released to them. But a source inside ORR said that since the start of November, the government has pretty much stopped releasing kids to sponsors, even those who had cleared the vetting process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the month of October, before this apparent moratorium, the government was releasing about four kids per day to sponsors – that’s like 115 kids for the month. But over the last month and a half, they’ve released only four kids total to sponsors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\">UPDATE: In a response received Wednesday after this episode aired, the Administration for Children and Families, which oversees ORR, said the office “has not issued a moratorium” on sponsor releases, but alluded to “enhanced vetting policies” for adults who will be caring for the children after their release. “ORR continues to discharge children to vetted sponsors when all statutory and safety requirements are fully met and when release is assessed to be appropriate given the child’s individual needs and circumstances,” ACF told the California Newsroom. “Each case is evaluated individually, and decisions are made based on child welfare best practices.”\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"Page-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-new-years-eve-turtle-liberation-arrests-a84a26742ecbd5fe813ab959162268d2\">\u003cstrong>4 Charged With Plotting New Year’s Eve Attacks In Southern California\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Federal authorities said Monday that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvcrnews.org/local-news/2025-12-15/fbi-stops-new-years-eve-bomb-plot-in-lucerne-valley\">they foiled a plot to bomb multiple sites of two U.S. companies\u003c/a> on New Year’s Eve in Southern California after arresting members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The four suspects were arrested Friday in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference. Officials showed reporters surveillance aerial footage of the suspects moving a large black object in the desert to a table. Officials said they were able to make the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the criminal complaint, the four suspects named are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. They are all from the Los Angeles area, Essayli said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials did not describe a motive but said they are members of an offshoot of a group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The group calls for decolonization, tribal sovereignty and “the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” according to the criminal complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArtP-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/local-news/2025-12-12/fresno-attorney-mounts-federal-legal-fight-against-citys-anti-camping-law\">\u003cstrong>Fresno Attorney Mounts Federal Legal Fight Against City’s Anti-Camping Law\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A Fresno-based attorney is mounting a class action lawsuit against the city over its anti-encampment law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney Kevin Little is challenging the constitutionality of the City of Fresno’s anti-encampment policy in the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of California. The lawsuit, filed last week, names Wickey TwoHands and Joseph Quinney as plaintiffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TwoHands made headlines earlier this year as the first unhoused person to be prosecuted by the City Attorney’s Office under the new law. TwoHands’ case was thrown out of court after a judge ruled that \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://fresnoland.org/2025/04/10/two-hands/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">city prosecutors violated TwoHands’ right\u003c/a> to a speedy trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit alleges that the camping ban violates unhoused people’s civil rights. And it accuses authorities of discriminating against the elderly and the disabled when making arrests. “People’s mere existence is becoming illegal and this is now even worse for the unhoused community, which demographics show is disproportionately elderly and disabled,” Little said. Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz responded that he looks forward to taking this case to the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "ice-deportations-create-fear-and-isolation-in-californias-sikh-community",
"title": "ICE Deportations Create Fear and Isolation in California’s Sikh Community",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Atop the rolling hills of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">East San José\u003c/a> sits the largest \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjose.org/listings/sikh-gurdwara-sahib\">Sikh temple\u003c/a> in the United States, its white domes visible for miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside, on an October Sunday, music drifted through the prayer hall and congregants made their way to\u003cem> langar\u003c/em>, the community kitchen where free meals are served each day. For decades, this gurdwara has been both a spiritual anchor and a lifeline for tens of thousands of worshippers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the past year, a quiet, growing fear has settled into the space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>South Asians are rarely included in conversations about undocumented communities, yet 35,000 people from India were \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters\">apprehended\u003c/a> at the U.S. border this year — many of them Punjabi Sikhs. Some arrive seeking political refuge; others come on temporary visas and take low-wage jobs that leave them especially exposed when immigration policy shifts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following a January \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/01/21/statement-dhs-spokesperson-directives-expanding-law-enforcement-and-ending-abuse\">memo\u003c/a> from the Department of Homeland Security, expanding where officers can operate, federal immigration agents are more routinely showing up at formerly protected “sensitive locations” — hospitals, clinics, schools and places of worship. The intensification of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12053380/as-ice-arrests-surge-a-journalist-in-southern-california-covers-raids-in-her-own-backyard\">ICE enforcement across California\u003c/a> has left many Sikh immigrants wondering whether even their gurdwaras are still safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066899\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066899\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tanay Gokhale, a journalist covering how immigration enforcement affects Punjabi Sikh residents across California, stands in front of Gurdwara Sahib Hayward, a Sikh temple established in 1993, in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gurdwaras act as a touchstone for medical care, social services and community support for Sikh Punjabi immigrants and their families. With Punjabi being the \u003ca href=\"https://mesa.ucdavis.edu/punjabi#:~:text=Why%20Learn%20Punjabi?,that%20started%20in%20the%201890s.\">third\u003c/a> most-spoken language in several California counties, many find solace in the in-language information the space offers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Journalist Tanay Gokhale spent the past year with this community, reporting for \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-to-keep-ice-out-of-gurdwaras/\">India Currents\u003c/a>, a San José–based nonprofit magazine serving South Asian immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He joined \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/program/the-california-report-magazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> host Sasha Khokha to explain how rising ICE activity is reshaping daily life for Sikh immigrants in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Only why he turned his attention to Sikh Punjabi immigrants\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the administration’s immigration crackdown started, I was thinking of how this might impact the Indian diaspora. And generally, when you think of the Indian diaspora, you think of an affluent group of well-educated people who are accomplished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But few people know that Indians are actually the fifth-largest \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/#:~:text=After%20Mexico%2C%20the%20countries%20with%20the%20largest,(850%2C000)%20*%20Honduras%20(775%2C000)%20*%20India%20(680%2C000)\">undocumented\u003c/a> group in the country. And this community is largely underreported and a lot of these people are Sikhs coming from [the state of] Punjab to settle in California. They’re working \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11849926/why-farmers-drove-a-tractor-to-protest-at-the-indian-consulate-in-san-francisco\">blue-collar jobs like agricultural labor\u003c/a> or in the trucking industry. I also thought about how the immigration crackdown is also impacting immigrants’ health outcomes because people are more afraid to go out and seek health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what changed after President Donald Trump took office in January of 2025\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The DHS issued the memo on Jan. 21, right after the Trump administration took charge. It basically allowed ICE officers to conduct operations inside places of worship, which in the past was a big no-no unless it was absolutely necessary.[aside postID=news_12053380 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/75ACE4D9-068E-4167-9BD3-CFF3A0BE597B-2000x1335.jpg']Right after the memo came out, there were also some false rumors about ICE raids in gurdwaras across the country, and that further fueled the paranoia and fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suddenly, Sikhs around the country were thinking, “Hold on, if I go to the gurdwara every Sunday, but this time when I step out, is there a chance that I’m gonna get picked up by ICE?” And that led to a lot of fear among the community and gurdwaras were reporting a drop in attendance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke to Narenda Singh Thandi, a former Amtrak bus driver who’s now serving as the president of \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-to-keep-ice-out-of-gurdwaras/\">the West Sacramento gurdwara\u003c/a>. And he was talking about how he’s concerned that immigration activity would go against the decorum that gurdwaras need to maintain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want ICE in the temple,” Thandi said. “We don’t want people to go with the shoes on, with guns on, which is against our system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Sikhs go to the gurdwara, their heads are supposed to be covered at all times, and there’s absolutely no weapons allowed inside. You’re also supposed to take your shoes off before you enter the prayer hall. If an ICE operation or a homeland security operation is happening, chances are that officers aren’t necessarily gonna follow that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On why gurdwaras are essential support hubs — and the cost of staying away\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Gurdwaras are a house of worship, but they’re also kind of like resource hubs for new immigrants, especially those who do not speak English and only speak Punjabi. These are spaces where you pray, but you also seek out fellowship: you meet a familiar-looking face from your city back home in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gurdwara offers all of these wonderful services like you mentioned. So, when you’re seeing a drop in attendance in gurdwaras because of fear of immigration activity, it also means that congregants are not accessing these services, and that can lead to some pretty serious outcomes for their health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066902\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066902\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volunteers prepare food in the langar kitchen at Gurdwara Sahib Hayward in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. The Sikh tradition of langar emphasizes community service and equality through shared meals. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I spoke to Dr. Harpreet Singh Pannu. He’s a Kaiser doctor, but on Sundays, he runs a \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/language-barriers-cripple-sikh-immigrants-access-to-healthcare/\">free medical clinic\u003c/a> at the San José gurdwara. By training, he’s an internal medicine specialist, but at this gurdwara, he is a physician, he’s a mental health counselor, he’s a health advocate, he’s a health educator — all rolled into one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Especially among older congregants, someone who speaks in Punjabi offers a level of comfort and familiarity that they often cannot find in a hospital, which can seem foreign and sterile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t make a difference in terms of whether they are documented or undocumented,” Pannu said. “But there is reluctance because they are worried if they come here, they could end up in trouble.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By ‘ending up in trouble,’ he’s talking about getting picked up by ICE in a raid, and this is especially problematic for some of the older congregants who have this as their only point of contact with any sort of health practitioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On one man’s quiet support for Sikh detainees\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2016, driven purely by his own curiosity, Simran Singh made the 20-minute trip [from his home] to the \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/for-sikhs-in-ice-detention-centers-faith-represents-hope/\">Mesa Verde detention center\u003c/a>. He didn’t expect there to be any [South Asian detainees], but was actually surprised to see that there were three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detention centers can be really isolating places for detainees.[aside postID=news_12066314 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251203-SJPRIESTIMMIGRATION00043_TV-KQED.jpg']You’ve just had a months-long journey from India to the U.S. border, and suddenly you find yourself in this place where you have very little personal space and there’s also nobody to talk to because you’re often speaking different languages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A phone call — an international phone call back home — costs 85 cents a minute. You can work an entire day, and you can barely scrape together enough money to speak for one minute to your family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singh completed a four-hour volunteer course that the detention center offers. And once he completed that, he had access to the detainees. He found that none of the detainees had access to gutke — a holy prayer book that Sikhs usually have on their person — and it is a really important part of prayer and Sikhism and of their faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of them weren’t fluent in English,” Singh said, “It was just heartwarming to see them have something that connects them to the outside world so they’re not just isolated in this place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He visited every week with some langar food, gutke, turban cloths and Punjabi newspapers to keep them updated on what was happening back home in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the battle to protect articles of faith behind bars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Detainees did not have access to articles of faith — no gutke, no prayer beads, no turban cloths. There’s a lack of awareness and lack of resources on the ICE detention centers part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067105\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067105\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle-160x90.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Simran Singh (middle) during a group tour of the Bakersfield Detention Center that he organized to raise awareness about Sikh detainees among the Sikh diaspora. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Simran Singh.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For example, in detention centers, detainees cannot keep hardbound books on their person. But the gutke are almost always hardbound because they’re holy and they’re supposed to be kept protected at all times, and they shouldn’t have any damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Singh found out, he found an importer in India, a manufacturer who makes softbound gutke and he added a layer of zip-close bag protection as security. And then it was okay to distribute them among the detainees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another contentious article of faith is the turban. Sikh men are required to wear a turban to cover the head at all times. It’s very important to them. It’s a representation of their faith. And taking off one’s turban, especially in public, represents great dishonor among practicing Sikhs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in 2022, there were dozens of cases in which Sikh detainees were \u003ca href=\"https://arizonastatelawjournal.org/2022/10/03/a-call-for-accountability-u-s-border-patrol-officers-confiscate-and-discard-sikh-turbans/\">forced\u003c/a> to take off their turbans at the border by immigration officers. In some cases, the turbans were thrown into the trash right in front of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On shared suffering and solidarity\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In some ways, the detainees are all in the same boat with respect to some common struggles. They’re all away from home, they’re all anxious about their future, their families, their finances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often, there’s a language barrier that prevents them from connecting, except sometimes through faith. In that kind of a situation, faith becomes a really powerful thing to hang on to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066900\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066900\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Worshippers sit on the floor and eat langar, a free communal meal, inside Gurdwara Sahib Hayward in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. Sikh temples serve langar to all visitors, regardless of background or religion. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Singh also found that prayer beads — malas —that he was bringing to Sikh detainees are actually used by multiple faiths. They’re used in Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism and other faiths as well. And that became a point of connection inside the detention center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The South Asian detainees would also take back extra \u003cem>malas\u003c/em> to give out to people and so kind of build this relationship with someone from El Salvador or Mexico,” said Singh. “Neither of you are speaking English well, but now you have something to give to them, and that gesture goes a long way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On why this community needs greater attention and support\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When Singh visited the detention facility for the first time in 2016, he saw three South Asian detainees. Now he’s seeing 65, of which half are Sikhs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s still not enough advocacy and enough support for this population, even within the Indian diaspora. It is heartening to see people like Singh stepping in, doing everything that they can and filling in that gap, but I do think there needs to be more advocacy and support and just general awareness about this population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The intensification of ICE enforcement has left many Sikh immigrants in cities like San José wondering whether even their gurdwaras, sacred places of worship, are safe.\r\n",
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"title": "ICE Deportations Create Fear and Isolation in California’s Sikh Community | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Atop the rolling hills of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">East San José\u003c/a> sits the largest \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjose.org/listings/sikh-gurdwara-sahib\">Sikh temple\u003c/a> in the United States, its white domes visible for miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside, on an October Sunday, music drifted through the prayer hall and congregants made their way to\u003cem> langar\u003c/em>, the community kitchen where free meals are served each day. For decades, this gurdwara has been both a spiritual anchor and a lifeline for tens of thousands of worshippers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the past year, a quiet, growing fear has settled into the space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>South Asians are rarely included in conversations about undocumented communities, yet 35,000 people from India were \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters\">apprehended\u003c/a> at the U.S. border this year — many of them Punjabi Sikhs. Some arrive seeking political refuge; others come on temporary visas and take low-wage jobs that leave them especially exposed when immigration policy shifts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following a January \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/01/21/statement-dhs-spokesperson-directives-expanding-law-enforcement-and-ending-abuse\">memo\u003c/a> from the Department of Homeland Security, expanding where officers can operate, federal immigration agents are more routinely showing up at formerly protected “sensitive locations” — hospitals, clinics, schools and places of worship. The intensification of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12053380/as-ice-arrests-surge-a-journalist-in-southern-california-covers-raids-in-her-own-backyard\">ICE enforcement across California\u003c/a> has left many Sikh immigrants wondering whether even their gurdwaras are still safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066899\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066899\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tanay Gokhale, a journalist covering how immigration enforcement affects Punjabi Sikh residents across California, stands in front of Gurdwara Sahib Hayward, a Sikh temple established in 1993, in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gurdwaras act as a touchstone for medical care, social services and community support for Sikh Punjabi immigrants and their families. With Punjabi being the \u003ca href=\"https://mesa.ucdavis.edu/punjabi#:~:text=Why%20Learn%20Punjabi?,that%20started%20in%20the%201890s.\">third\u003c/a> most-spoken language in several California counties, many find solace in the in-language information the space offers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Journalist Tanay Gokhale spent the past year with this community, reporting for \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-to-keep-ice-out-of-gurdwaras/\">India Currents\u003c/a>, a San José–based nonprofit magazine serving South Asian immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He joined \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/program/the-california-report-magazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> host Sasha Khokha to explain how rising ICE activity is reshaping daily life for Sikh immigrants in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Only why he turned his attention to Sikh Punjabi immigrants\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the administration’s immigration crackdown started, I was thinking of how this might impact the Indian diaspora. And generally, when you think of the Indian diaspora, you think of an affluent group of well-educated people who are accomplished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But few people know that Indians are actually the fifth-largest \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/#:~:text=After%20Mexico%2C%20the%20countries%20with%20the%20largest,(850%2C000)%20*%20Honduras%20(775%2C000)%20*%20India%20(680%2C000)\">undocumented\u003c/a> group in the country. And this community is largely underreported and a lot of these people are Sikhs coming from [the state of] Punjab to settle in California. They’re working \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11849926/why-farmers-drove-a-tractor-to-protest-at-the-indian-consulate-in-san-francisco\">blue-collar jobs like agricultural labor\u003c/a> or in the trucking industry. I also thought about how the immigration crackdown is also impacting immigrants’ health outcomes because people are more afraid to go out and seek health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what changed after President Donald Trump took office in January of 2025\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The DHS issued the memo on Jan. 21, right after the Trump administration took charge. It basically allowed ICE officers to conduct operations inside places of worship, which in the past was a big no-no unless it was absolutely necessary.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Right after the memo came out, there were also some false rumors about ICE raids in gurdwaras across the country, and that further fueled the paranoia and fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suddenly, Sikhs around the country were thinking, “Hold on, if I go to the gurdwara every Sunday, but this time when I step out, is there a chance that I’m gonna get picked up by ICE?” And that led to a lot of fear among the community and gurdwaras were reporting a drop in attendance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke to Narenda Singh Thandi, a former Amtrak bus driver who’s now serving as the president of \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-to-keep-ice-out-of-gurdwaras/\">the West Sacramento gurdwara\u003c/a>. And he was talking about how he’s concerned that immigration activity would go against the decorum that gurdwaras need to maintain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want ICE in the temple,” Thandi said. “We don’t want people to go with the shoes on, with guns on, which is against our system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Sikhs go to the gurdwara, their heads are supposed to be covered at all times, and there’s absolutely no weapons allowed inside. You’re also supposed to take your shoes off before you enter the prayer hall. If an ICE operation or a homeland security operation is happening, chances are that officers aren’t necessarily gonna follow that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On why gurdwaras are essential support hubs — and the cost of staying away\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Gurdwaras are a house of worship, but they’re also kind of like resource hubs for new immigrants, especially those who do not speak English and only speak Punjabi. These are spaces where you pray, but you also seek out fellowship: you meet a familiar-looking face from your city back home in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gurdwara offers all of these wonderful services like you mentioned. So, when you’re seeing a drop in attendance in gurdwaras because of fear of immigration activity, it also means that congregants are not accessing these services, and that can lead to some pretty serious outcomes for their health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066902\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066902\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volunteers prepare food in the langar kitchen at Gurdwara Sahib Hayward in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. The Sikh tradition of langar emphasizes community service and equality through shared meals. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I spoke to Dr. Harpreet Singh Pannu. He’s a Kaiser doctor, but on Sundays, he runs a \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/language-barriers-cripple-sikh-immigrants-access-to-healthcare/\">free medical clinic\u003c/a> at the San José gurdwara. By training, he’s an internal medicine specialist, but at this gurdwara, he is a physician, he’s a mental health counselor, he’s a health advocate, he’s a health educator — all rolled into one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Especially among older congregants, someone who speaks in Punjabi offers a level of comfort and familiarity that they often cannot find in a hospital, which can seem foreign and sterile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t make a difference in terms of whether they are documented or undocumented,” Pannu said. “But there is reluctance because they are worried if they come here, they could end up in trouble.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By ‘ending up in trouble,’ he’s talking about getting picked up by ICE in a raid, and this is especially problematic for some of the older congregants who have this as their only point of contact with any sort of health practitioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On one man’s quiet support for Sikh detainees\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2016, driven purely by his own curiosity, Simran Singh made the 20-minute trip [from his home] to the \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/for-sikhs-in-ice-detention-centers-faith-represents-hope/\">Mesa Verde detention center\u003c/a>. He didn’t expect there to be any [South Asian detainees], but was actually surprised to see that there were three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detention centers can be really isolating places for detainees.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>You’ve just had a months-long journey from India to the U.S. border, and suddenly you find yourself in this place where you have very little personal space and there’s also nobody to talk to because you’re often speaking different languages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A phone call — an international phone call back home — costs 85 cents a minute. You can work an entire day, and you can barely scrape together enough money to speak for one minute to your family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singh completed a four-hour volunteer course that the detention center offers. And once he completed that, he had access to the detainees. He found that none of the detainees had access to gutke — a holy prayer book that Sikhs usually have on their person — and it is a really important part of prayer and Sikhism and of their faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of them weren’t fluent in English,” Singh said, “It was just heartwarming to see them have something that connects them to the outside world so they’re not just isolated in this place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He visited every week with some langar food, gutke, turban cloths and Punjabi newspapers to keep them updated on what was happening back home in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the battle to protect articles of faith behind bars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Detainees did not have access to articles of faith — no gutke, no prayer beads, no turban cloths. There’s a lack of awareness and lack of resources on the ICE detention centers part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067105\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067105\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle-160x90.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Simran Singh (middle) during a group tour of the Bakersfield Detention Center that he organized to raise awareness about Sikh detainees among the Sikh diaspora. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Simran Singh.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For example, in detention centers, detainees cannot keep hardbound books on their person. But the gutke are almost always hardbound because they’re holy and they’re supposed to be kept protected at all times, and they shouldn’t have any damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Singh found out, he found an importer in India, a manufacturer who makes softbound gutke and he added a layer of zip-close bag protection as security. And then it was okay to distribute them among the detainees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another contentious article of faith is the turban. Sikh men are required to wear a turban to cover the head at all times. It’s very important to them. It’s a representation of their faith. And taking off one’s turban, especially in public, represents great dishonor among practicing Sikhs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in 2022, there were dozens of cases in which Sikh detainees were \u003ca href=\"https://arizonastatelawjournal.org/2022/10/03/a-call-for-accountability-u-s-border-patrol-officers-confiscate-and-discard-sikh-turbans/\">forced\u003c/a> to take off their turbans at the border by immigration officers. In some cases, the turbans were thrown into the trash right in front of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On shared suffering and solidarity\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In some ways, the detainees are all in the same boat with respect to some common struggles. They’re all away from home, they’re all anxious about their future, their families, their finances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often, there’s a language barrier that prevents them from connecting, except sometimes through faith. In that kind of a situation, faith becomes a really powerful thing to hang on to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066900\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066900\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Worshippers sit on the floor and eat langar, a free communal meal, inside Gurdwara Sahib Hayward in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. Sikh temples serve langar to all visitors, regardless of background or religion. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Singh also found that prayer beads — malas —that he was bringing to Sikh detainees are actually used by multiple faiths. They’re used in Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism and other faiths as well. And that became a point of connection inside the detention center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The South Asian detainees would also take back extra \u003cem>malas\u003c/em> to give out to people and so kind of build this relationship with someone from El Salvador or Mexico,” said Singh. “Neither of you are speaking English well, but now you have something to give to them, and that gesture goes a long way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On why this community needs greater attention and support\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When Singh visited the detention facility for the first time in 2016, he saw three South Asian detainees. Now he’s seeing 65, of which half are Sikhs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s still not enough advocacy and enough support for this population, even within the Indian diaspora. It is heartening to see people like Singh stepping in, doing everything that they can and filling in that gap, but I do think there needs to be more advocacy and support and just general awareness about this population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"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>",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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},
"radiolab": {
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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