Scott Wiener and Garry Tan Team Up to Tackle Big Tech’s Anti-Competitive Behavior
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Bay Area Rep. John Garamendi Confirms Travis Air Force Base Used by US in Iran War
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California Reacts to Shocking Cesar Chavez Sexual Misconduct Revelations
Allegations Prompt Cancellation of Cesar Chavez Celebrations
Lawsuit Accusing Elon Musk of Tanking Twitter Share Price Goes to Jury
California Education Officials Take Aim at Student Achievement Gap
New Bill Aims to Ensure Legal Help for Immigrants Facing Deportation
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Immediately following Wiener, CEO and political lightning rod Garry Tan extolled the virtues of SB 1074, which would prohibit any company with a market capitalization greater than $1 trillion \u003cu>and\u003c/u> with 100 million or more monthly users in the U.S., from favoring their own products and services on their own platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the end of the day, all of these behaviors come down to one thing: massive, dominant corporations favoring their own products and services over their competitors,” Wiener said. “Our economic system is premised on fair competition and open markets with over a century of federal law. But a few platforms have gotten so big that the old tools have proven inadequate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11738727/while-american-politicians-dither-europe-gets-busy-crafting-artificial-intelligence-regulations\">European regulators\u003c/a> have already begun to pressure Big Tech companies that function as gatekeepers to play nice and stop self-preferencing their own products at the expense of smaller companies with competing products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener cited examples from four of the largest Big Tech companies: Apple’s App Store, which can charge up to a 30% commission fee on digital purchases, and also blocks some apps, claiming they are insecure or malicious. Some developers have successfully sued over false claims and had their apps reinstated onto the store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google has expanded the number of ads at the top of search engine results pages, often presenting several sponsored results before the first organic link. Paid ads are now integrated directly into AI-powered search overviews, appearing in high-volume, commercial searches rather than just top-of-funnel queries\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11951943 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Meta has been accused of disadvantaging rival apps, while Amazon faces ongoing scrutiny over copying competitors’ products and downranking third-party sellers. \u003ccite>(Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meta has been accused of restricting or disadvantaging competing apps on its platforms, and Amazon has faced repeated allegations and investigations over practices such as manufacturing its own versions of competitive products and burying third-party retailers in consumer search results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The open web — the thing that made the first generation of internet companies possible — is being quietly swallowed,” Tan said. “We’re not here to punish companies for being good at what they do,” said Tan, sounding not unlike a politician himself. “And we’re not against Big Tech. But we are for Little Tech.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener noted that Big Tech’s behavior has been the subject of litigation as well. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and lower courts have largely \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-11/apple-loses-appeals-court-ruling-in-app-store-fight-with-epic\">upheld\u003c/a> rulings against Apple’s App Store “anti-steering” policies, forcing Apple to allow developers to link to external payment options.[aside postID=news_12076663 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-05-KQED.jpg']In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general \u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power\">sued Amazon\u003c/a> for its anti-discounting policies. In 2024, a federal judge ruled \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036593/the-most-important-case-about-the-internet-since-the-internet-was-invented-enters-its-final-phase\">Google held monopoly power\u003c/a> in the markets for general search engine services and text advertising, and had unlawfully used that power to keep competitors out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tan has helped lead the effort \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017551/is-san-francisco-a-bellwether-for-cryptocurrency-influence-on-local-elections\">to shift San Francisco’s Democratic politics\u003c/a> away from progressivism, and he’s worked with Wiener since 2023. Along with the California Democratic Party, Tan endorsed Wiener for his bid to fill Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s seat when she retires this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tan \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11994184/it-really-hits-home-bay-area-leaders-reflect-on-political-violence-after-trump-shooting\">made headlines in 2024\u003c/a> when he drunkenly tweeted: “Die slow” at eight San Francisco supervisors to his more than 400,000 followers. Tan has since apologized and deleted the post.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given Gov. Gavin Newsom’s cultivation of Silicon Valley donors as he eyes a potential bid for the White House, some question the prospects of SB 1074 in Sacramento, along with that of its companion bill in the state Assembly, AB 1776.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener, whose initial, provocative attempt to regulate Big Tech and AI was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\">crushed by the governor\u003c/a> in 2024, acknowledged the challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going up against some of the largest corporations in the history of Planet Earth. And it’s going to be a bruising fight, but we’re on the right side, and we’re going to have a big grassroots coalition, and we will make the case to Gov. Newsom,” Wiener said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076865\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076865\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260123-signaturekickoff00448_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260123-signaturekickoff00448_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260123-signaturekickoff00448_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260123-signaturekickoff00448_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Scott Wiener speaks on his support for California Senate Bill 63 at a press conference at Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco on Jan. 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wiener also said his bill could help consumers see the full benefit from the AI boom playing out in San Francisco today and build public confidence. This presumably includes San Francisco voters and entrepreneurs who feel Big Tech has thwarted their interests in conversations over legislation and regulation in Sacramento and Washington. SB 1074’s name, the “BASED Act,” winks at internet slang while spelling out its full ambition: \u003cstrong>B\u003c/strong>locking \u003cstrong>A\u003c/strong>nti-Competitive \u003cstrong>S\u003c/strong>elf-Preferencing by \u003cstrong>E\u003c/strong>ntrenched \u003cstrong>D\u003c/strong>ominant Platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI also hands malicious actors the same speed and scale as would-be entrepreneurs, making it easier than ever to flood the web with fraudulent apps and convincing scams. It’s the kind of threat that might make less technologically sophisticated consumers grateful for Apple’s app review process or Google’s spam filters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Tan waved away the concern that the BASED Act might make average consumers more vulnerable as a classic Big Tech talking point. Instead, he argued, AI is so democratizing that “having a truly secure computing environment is now in the hands of the end user,” a claim that may land differently for San Francisco voters who aren’t techies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The Y Combinator CEO has endorsed the state senator in his bid for Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s seat. Now, they’re joining forces to protect “fair competition” in tech.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>An unlikely duo of moderate Democrats has teamed up once again to \u003ca href=\"https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/senator-wiener-announces-landmark-legislation-crack-down-big-techs-anticompetitive-behavior\">introduce a bill\u003c/a> banning anticompetitive behavior from Big Tech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, announced the new legislation on Wednesday at the San Francisco headquarters of Y Combinator. Immediately following Wiener, CEO and political lightning rod Garry Tan extolled the virtues of SB 1074, which would prohibit any company with a market capitalization greater than $1 trillion \u003cu>and\u003c/u> with 100 million or more monthly users in the U.S., from favoring their own products and services on their own platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the end of the day, all of these behaviors come down to one thing: massive, dominant corporations favoring their own products and services over their competitors,” Wiener said. “Our economic system is premised on fair competition and open markets with over a century of federal law. But a few platforms have gotten so big that the old tools have proven inadequate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11738727/while-american-politicians-dither-europe-gets-busy-crafting-artificial-intelligence-regulations\">European regulators\u003c/a> have already begun to pressure Big Tech companies that function as gatekeepers to play nice and stop self-preferencing their own products at the expense of smaller companies with competing products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener cited examples from four of the largest Big Tech companies: Apple’s App Store, which can charge up to a 30% commission fee on digital purchases, and also blocks some apps, claiming they are insecure or malicious. Some developers have successfully sued over false claims and had their apps reinstated onto the store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google has expanded the number of ads at the top of search engine results pages, often presenting several sponsored results before the first organic link. Paid ads are now integrated directly into AI-powered search overviews, appearing in high-volume, commercial searches rather than just top-of-funnel queries\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11951943 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Meta has been accused of disadvantaging rival apps, while Amazon faces ongoing scrutiny over copying competitors’ products and downranking third-party sellers. \u003ccite>(Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meta has been accused of restricting or disadvantaging competing apps on its platforms, and Amazon has faced repeated allegations and investigations over practices such as manufacturing its own versions of competitive products and burying third-party retailers in consumer search results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The open web — the thing that made the first generation of internet companies possible — is being quietly swallowed,” Tan said. “We’re not here to punish companies for being good at what they do,” said Tan, sounding not unlike a politician himself. “And we’re not against Big Tech. But we are for Little Tech.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener noted that Big Tech’s behavior has been the subject of litigation as well. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and lower courts have largely \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-11/apple-loses-appeals-court-ruling-in-app-store-fight-with-epic\">upheld\u003c/a> rulings against Apple’s App Store “anti-steering” policies, forcing Apple to allow developers to link to external payment options.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general \u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power\">sued Amazon\u003c/a> for its anti-discounting policies. In 2024, a federal judge ruled \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036593/the-most-important-case-about-the-internet-since-the-internet-was-invented-enters-its-final-phase\">Google held monopoly power\u003c/a> in the markets for general search engine services and text advertising, and had unlawfully used that power to keep competitors out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tan has helped lead the effort \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017551/is-san-francisco-a-bellwether-for-cryptocurrency-influence-on-local-elections\">to shift San Francisco’s Democratic politics\u003c/a> away from progressivism, and he’s worked with Wiener since 2023. Along with the California Democratic Party, Tan endorsed Wiener for his bid to fill Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s seat when she retires this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tan \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11994184/it-really-hits-home-bay-area-leaders-reflect-on-political-violence-after-trump-shooting\">made headlines in 2024\u003c/a> when he drunkenly tweeted: “Die slow” at eight San Francisco supervisors to his more than 400,000 followers. Tan has since apologized and deleted the post.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given Gov. Gavin Newsom’s cultivation of Silicon Valley donors as he eyes a potential bid for the White House, some question the prospects of SB 1074 in Sacramento, along with that of its companion bill in the state Assembly, AB 1776.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener, whose initial, provocative attempt to regulate Big Tech and AI was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\">crushed by the governor\u003c/a> in 2024, acknowledged the challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going up against some of the largest corporations in the history of Planet Earth. And it’s going to be a bruising fight, but we’re on the right side, and we’re going to have a big grassroots coalition, and we will make the case to Gov. Newsom,” Wiener said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076865\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076865\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260123-signaturekickoff00448_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260123-signaturekickoff00448_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260123-signaturekickoff00448_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260123-signaturekickoff00448_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Scott Wiener speaks on his support for California Senate Bill 63 at a press conference at Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco on Jan. 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wiener also said his bill could help consumers see the full benefit from the AI boom playing out in San Francisco today and build public confidence. This presumably includes San Francisco voters and entrepreneurs who feel Big Tech has thwarted their interests in conversations over legislation and regulation in Sacramento and Washington. SB 1074’s name, the “BASED Act,” winks at internet slang while spelling out its full ambition: \u003cstrong>B\u003c/strong>locking \u003cstrong>A\u003c/strong>nti-Competitive \u003cstrong>S\u003c/strong>elf-Preferencing by \u003cstrong>E\u003c/strong>ntrenched \u003cstrong>D\u003c/strong>ominant Platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI also hands malicious actors the same speed and scale as would-be entrepreneurs, making it easier than ever to flood the web with fraudulent apps and convincing scams. It’s the kind of threat that might make less technologically sophisticated consumers grateful for Apple’s app review process or Google’s spam filters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Tan waved away the concern that the BASED Act might make average consumers more vulnerable as a classic Big Tech talking point. Instead, he argued, AI is so democratizing that “having a truly secure computing environment is now in the hands of the end user,” a claim that may land differently for San Francisco voters who aren’t techies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "behind-commercial-surrogacy-and-its-regulations-in-california",
"title": "Behind Commercial Surrogacy and Its Regulations in California",
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"content": "\u003cp>Commercial surrogacy is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913083/ethical-questions-arise-from-cas-commercial-surrogacy-industry\">life-changing option for couples\u003c/a> who have been unable to conceive. As one listener told KQED’s \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in late February, her experience with ovarian cancer meant that she lost her ability to have her own children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used surrogacy to have my two children,” the listener said. “And without it, we wouldn’t be able to have this incredible life that we have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another caller was a gay father based in San Francisco, who had twin boys through surrogacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The vast, vast majority of parents that have kids through surrogacy — it’s the biggest blessing of their life,” he said. “And they had to work extremely hard to make it happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many in the fertility field — especially commercial surrogacy — were rocked by a recent investigation by \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/16/the-babies-kept-in-a-mysterious-los-angeles-mansion\">\u003cem>The New Yorker’s \u003c/em>Ava Kofman\u003c/a>, which followed the story of Kayla Elliott.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elliott was a Texas mother of four, already carrying a baby for a Los Angeles couple, when she found out the couple had more than 20 other children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076885\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076885\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SurrogacyGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1408\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SurrogacyGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SurrogacyGetty2-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SurrogacyGetty2-1536x1081.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A newborn lying on a changing table on June 5, 2001, in the maternity ward of the Franco-British Hospital in Levallois-Perret. \u003ccite>(Didier Pallages/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of the children, a baby, was reportedly hospitalized with bleeding inside the brain and eyes, indicating potential child abuse. That prompted police to visit the couple’s Arcadia home, where they found it crowded with many young infants and children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities also found surveillance footage from devices the couple set up in the house — and allegedly saw that the children were being beaten and neglected by nannies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The children, including the baby Elliott gave birth to, were taken into custody, and the couple was arrested but later released. At the time, several surrogates were still pregnant for the couple.[aside postID=news_12070643 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/ivfchanges.jpg']For many of the children, the future remains unclear. Even amid an ongoing battle over who should have custody, the pair has engaged new surrogates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are drawn to being surrogates for all sorts of different reasons, but for many of them, like Kayla, this was something they wanted to do to kind of try to make a difference,” Kofman said. “It was especially painful to realize that they might be bringing a child into a situation that not only was not great, but if anything, potentially dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The case is highly unusual, said Deborah Wald, a certified family law specialist based in San Francisco. She said she has never seen a child born through surrogacy end up in the foster care system in her 35 years in the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These typically are very wanted, very planned for, very loved children,” Wald said. “The other times there have been sort of scandals within the industry, it’s been more with professionals figuring out how to take off with the money or those kinds of things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913083/ethical-questions-arise-from-cas-commercial-surrogacy-industry\">Forum\u003c/a> spoke to Kofman and Wald about the Los Angeles family, commercial surrogacy in California and regulations around the practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Los Angeles case and a trend among the wealthy\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How unusual is this case — and what motivated the Los Angeles couple?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ava Kofman:\u003c/strong> It’s incredibly unusual to have this many children, and certainly it seems like what was going on inside the home is quite unusual … but there’s also nothing stopping people from having as many children as they would like through surrogacy or assisted reproduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s been some \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/us-news/chinese-billionaires-surrogacy-pregnancy-7fdfc0c3?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqdvbDQdnj9DIEnvCQrLrOYqKlcKqN_RtWLgcWH0dqcHyBD7bV1NGX_HvtmmF3w%3D&gaa_ts=69afae86&gaa_sig=hsKIq7GlEe6jTV_AiBszh8M-VLOFzbVMW-UnX2fkYed7Ly-9K5nIrY-HLpdrbwJtFK3lWqMpL15gNRrlnAJy4w%3D%3D\">great reporting recently in the\u003cem> Wall Street Journa\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>l\u003c/em>, as well, showing people having upward of 100 children, in part, using surrogates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[The couple] wanted to have a big family; they wanted to have a lot of kids as they got older, who could be successful and carry on the family bloodline and legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It does seem like this is part of a wider trend we’ve seen with \u003ca href=\"https://www.today.com/parents/parents/elon-musk-kids-rcna19692\">billionaires like Elon Musk [who has 14 children]\u003c/a> and others who are really interested in spreading their gene pool and their legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046885\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12046885 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/iStock_000039661108_Large_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/iStock_000039661108_Large_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/iStock_000039661108_Large_qed-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/iStock_000039661108_Large_qed-1536x1021.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A shocking case in Los Angeles has rocked the fertility industry, sparking a conversation around commercial surrogacy and regulations. \u003ccite>(iStock/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How were they able to have over 20 children through surrogates?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kofman: \u003c/strong>This couple — after they had a few children through a professional surrogate agency — actually opened their own agency. And this is what was called Mark Surrogacy. As far as I could tell, no one’s really done this before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The surrogates had no awareness of this, and neither, it seems, did some of the attorneys working with the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most parents are using an agency because they \u003cem>want \u003c/em>a middleman, right? They want to be protected; they want to have someone who really knows the ropes. It’s a field with its own legal particularities. There [are] all kinds of things that can easily go right with experienced people, and can easily go wrong without them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>If Kayla Elliott or any other surrogates wanted to get custody of the child in this case, could they? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kofman: \u003c/strong>Legally, it seemed like it would have been quite complicated. She definitely didn’t have any legal custody off the bat, and no surrogates do. The industry kind of wouldn’t work if that [were] the case … the surrogate is not biologically related most of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some states … there’s no federal regulation … and it’s so, so state-based. And some states are in fact even silent on the question of how surrogacy should work.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The regulations and practices around surrogacy in California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are all versions of surrogacy commercial? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Wald: \u003c/strong>I want to make sure everyone’s aware, there’s a huge amount of surrogacy that happens … [for example] a sister having a baby for her infertile sister, that kind of thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think it’s very accepted within certain cultures and in certain communities that if you can’t have a baby and you have someone who loves you who’s going to do that, they’ll do it for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075793\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075793\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2183738602.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2183738602.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2183738602-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2183738602-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A couple holds hands as they meet with a pregnant woman who is interviewing them for potential adoptive parents. \u003ccite>(SDI Productions via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What are the typical compensation rates for commercial surrogacy in California?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald: \u003c/strong>It varies a lot. So this is what the women themselves get paid. This has nothing to do with what the doctors charge or what the agencies charge. Typical rates were in the $30,000 to $50,000 range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I still do sometimes see that. But I also recently saw a $120,000 fee to the surrogate herself. So it’s really jumped during and since COVID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are there protections around surrogacy in California?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald: \u003c/strong>Every surrogate I’ve ever represented has been looking for the same reassurance that intended parents look for, which is that she’s not doing this because she wants another child. And she wants to know that no matter what, the intended parents can’t bail. That the baby will be theirs, that she will not be legally and financially responsible for a child that’s not genetically hers, and that she never intended to parent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California law actually requires that a surrogate have a right to independent legal counsel of her own choosing. It can’t be the same attorney who works for the agency or the same attorney who’s representing the intended parents.[aside postID=forum_2010101913083 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2026/02/GettyImages-2225535809-2000x1333.jpg']She has a right to have all her medical care paid for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our law is clear that until the moment she gives birth, even if there’s been a pre-birth determination that the intended parents will be the legal parents, that doesn’t go into effect till the moment she gives birth. So there won’t be conflict over her right to make medical choices for herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In any state, when a woman gives birth, she’s the mother unless a court has said she isn’t. And so, for the intended parents to become the legal parents, there has to be an actual court action in almost every state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, we do allow that court action to happen before the baby’s born, so there is complete clarity at the moment of birth as to who the parents are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It facilitates medical decision-making for the baby. It facilitates making sure the baby is on the parents’ health insurance from the beginning. And that the intended parents are able to take the baby home from the hospital. That if the surrogate is ready to be discharged before the baby is, she’s free to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a number of benefits to having everything clear before the baby’s born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are there future regulations that experts are looking at?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald:\u003c/strong> I was one of the attorneys who worked on our statutory structure for gestational surrogacy in California, with an eye toward making sure surrogates were well protected by it. But [Kofman’s reporting] certainly has brought other holes to light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things in real time we’re talking about right now is enacting a surrogate’s Bill of Rights for the state of California, that would include the protections we already have, [like] that she has a right to make her own medical decisions, that she has a right to counsel and good health insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Particularly in response to the Mark Surrogacy situation, we’re talking about including that she has a right to better disclosures about who she’s carrying for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046881\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12046881 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/MaternityLeaveGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/MaternityLeaveGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/MaternityLeaveGetty1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/MaternityLeaveGetty1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California law actually requires that a surrogate have a right to independent legal counsel of her own choosing. It can’t be the same attorney who works for the agency or the same attorney who’s representing the intended parents. \u003ccite>(MoMo Productions/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kofman: \u003c/strong>Just from doing this reporting and talking to so many of these surrogates, I’d like to just lift up kind of what they’ve told me they want to see the most, which is just a lot more transparency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They went through such extensive vetting — psychological evaluations. Now, it’s also clear that some intended parents do the same, but that’s not often the case. That certainly wasn’t the case here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there’s already such a kind of a potential for a power asymmetry. There’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/us-news/surrogacy-unregulated-debts-profits-b9fdd987?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqc6VTBbJAQD14SIAJz06ZQSQDHkRTqfwaxeHircQ2OXbcTIQyPrfEzaejcoZ00%3D&gaa_ts=69af9a29&gaa_sig=AT4QNSJUCK78FyjVv_Gy3eOaEI6-EBddUwynFBqmzVqMDiQ8IvkGBGtKEFnqfoJY_jle0jk_Hqms2DbkPDTmwA%3D%3D\">a financial asymmetry in the exchange\u003c/a>, of course … just rectifying that with truly independent legal counsel, with the ability for agencies to ask hard questions of the parents, like they’re asking of the surrogates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And for the surrogates to just know what they’re getting into. A surrogate wants to know if they’re bringing a baby into a home with 15 other children or a home with one other child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Thinking of Elon Musk, some people may wonder about the \u003cem>number \u003c/em>of kids families may be having. Can you speak about this a little bit? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald: \u003c/strong>What was one of the things that was so unusual about this case was, you know, people actually raising all, I mean, even Elon Musk, I don’t think he’s actually raising the 14 children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But who’s supposed to decide that? It makes me very nervous to think about the state determining how many children a family can have. I agree that there’s an ethical and moral conversation to be had. State regulation is different from that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11934757\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11934757 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327.jpg\" alt=\"The midsection of a pregnant Black woman holding her belly.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“People are drawn to being surrogates for all sorts of different reasons, but for many of them, like Kayla, this was something they wanted to do to kind of try to make a difference,” The New Yorker’s Ava Kofman said. \u003ccite>(LWA/Dann Tardif via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What about strengthening requirements for setting up surrogacy \u003cem>agencies\u003c/em>? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kofman:\u003c/strong> Right now, it’s very easy to set up a surrogacy agency in every state but New York. [States don’t] require any sort of license. It’s much easier to set up a surrogacy agency than it is to set up a hair salon or adoption agency or child care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald: \u003c/strong>Within the \u003ca href=\"https://www.acal.org/\">Academy of California Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Lawyers\u003c/a>, we’re definitely looking at the New York statute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is something we’re looking at, whether we should look at a licensing requirement in the state of California and what that would look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not easy to get legislation passed. That’s probably true in every state. It’s certainly true in this state. And particularly if it’s gonna cost the state money. So who’s gonna regulate that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So we have to look at all of that when we try to figure out how realistic it is. But I can tell you that there are big conversations happening and a lot of smart, ethical people invested in trying to figure out how to make sure nothing like this happens again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Commercial surrogacy is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913083/ethical-questions-arise-from-cas-commercial-surrogacy-industry\">life-changing option for couples\u003c/a> who have been unable to conceive. As one listener told KQED’s \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in late February, her experience with ovarian cancer meant that she lost her ability to have her own children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used surrogacy to have my two children,” the listener said. “And without it, we wouldn’t be able to have this incredible life that we have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another caller was a gay father based in San Francisco, who had twin boys through surrogacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The vast, vast majority of parents that have kids through surrogacy — it’s the biggest blessing of their life,” he said. “And they had to work extremely hard to make it happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many in the fertility field — especially commercial surrogacy — were rocked by a recent investigation by \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/16/the-babies-kept-in-a-mysterious-los-angeles-mansion\">\u003cem>The New Yorker’s \u003c/em>Ava Kofman\u003c/a>, which followed the story of Kayla Elliott.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elliott was a Texas mother of four, already carrying a baby for a Los Angeles couple, when she found out the couple had more than 20 other children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076885\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076885\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SurrogacyGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1408\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SurrogacyGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SurrogacyGetty2-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SurrogacyGetty2-1536x1081.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A newborn lying on a changing table on June 5, 2001, in the maternity ward of the Franco-British Hospital in Levallois-Perret. \u003ccite>(Didier Pallages/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of the children, a baby, was reportedly hospitalized with bleeding inside the brain and eyes, indicating potential child abuse. That prompted police to visit the couple’s Arcadia home, where they found it crowded with many young infants and children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities also found surveillance footage from devices the couple set up in the house — and allegedly saw that the children were being beaten and neglected by nannies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The children, including the baby Elliott gave birth to, were taken into custody, and the couple was arrested but later released. At the time, several surrogates were still pregnant for the couple.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For many of the children, the future remains unclear. Even amid an ongoing battle over who should have custody, the pair has engaged new surrogates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are drawn to being surrogates for all sorts of different reasons, but for many of them, like Kayla, this was something they wanted to do to kind of try to make a difference,” Kofman said. “It was especially painful to realize that they might be bringing a child into a situation that not only was not great, but if anything, potentially dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The case is highly unusual, said Deborah Wald, a certified family law specialist based in San Francisco. She said she has never seen a child born through surrogacy end up in the foster care system in her 35 years in the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These typically are very wanted, very planned for, very loved children,” Wald said. “The other times there have been sort of scandals within the industry, it’s been more with professionals figuring out how to take off with the money or those kinds of things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913083/ethical-questions-arise-from-cas-commercial-surrogacy-industry\">Forum\u003c/a> spoke to Kofman and Wald about the Los Angeles family, commercial surrogacy in California and regulations around the practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Los Angeles case and a trend among the wealthy\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How unusual is this case — and what motivated the Los Angeles couple?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ava Kofman:\u003c/strong> It’s incredibly unusual to have this many children, and certainly it seems like what was going on inside the home is quite unusual … but there’s also nothing stopping people from having as many children as they would like through surrogacy or assisted reproduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s been some \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/us-news/chinese-billionaires-surrogacy-pregnancy-7fdfc0c3?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqdvbDQdnj9DIEnvCQrLrOYqKlcKqN_RtWLgcWH0dqcHyBD7bV1NGX_HvtmmF3w%3D&gaa_ts=69afae86&gaa_sig=hsKIq7GlEe6jTV_AiBszh8M-VLOFzbVMW-UnX2fkYed7Ly-9K5nIrY-HLpdrbwJtFK3lWqMpL15gNRrlnAJy4w%3D%3D\">great reporting recently in the\u003cem> Wall Street Journa\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>l\u003c/em>, as well, showing people having upward of 100 children, in part, using surrogates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[The couple] wanted to have a big family; they wanted to have a lot of kids as they got older, who could be successful and carry on the family bloodline and legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It does seem like this is part of a wider trend we’ve seen with \u003ca href=\"https://www.today.com/parents/parents/elon-musk-kids-rcna19692\">billionaires like Elon Musk [who has 14 children]\u003c/a> and others who are really interested in spreading their gene pool and their legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046885\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12046885 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/iStock_000039661108_Large_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/iStock_000039661108_Large_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/iStock_000039661108_Large_qed-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/iStock_000039661108_Large_qed-1536x1021.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A shocking case in Los Angeles has rocked the fertility industry, sparking a conversation around commercial surrogacy and regulations. \u003ccite>(iStock/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How were they able to have over 20 children through surrogates?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kofman: \u003c/strong>This couple — after they had a few children through a professional surrogate agency — actually opened their own agency. And this is what was called Mark Surrogacy. As far as I could tell, no one’s really done this before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The surrogates had no awareness of this, and neither, it seems, did some of the attorneys working with the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most parents are using an agency because they \u003cem>want \u003c/em>a middleman, right? They want to be protected; they want to have someone who really knows the ropes. It’s a field with its own legal particularities. There [are] all kinds of things that can easily go right with experienced people, and can easily go wrong without them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>If Kayla Elliott or any other surrogates wanted to get custody of the child in this case, could they? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kofman: \u003c/strong>Legally, it seemed like it would have been quite complicated. She definitely didn’t have any legal custody off the bat, and no surrogates do. The industry kind of wouldn’t work if that [were] the case … the surrogate is not biologically related most of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some states … there’s no federal regulation … and it’s so, so state-based. And some states are in fact even silent on the question of how surrogacy should work.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The regulations and practices around surrogacy in California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are all versions of surrogacy commercial? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Wald: \u003c/strong>I want to make sure everyone’s aware, there’s a huge amount of surrogacy that happens … [for example] a sister having a baby for her infertile sister, that kind of thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think it’s very accepted within certain cultures and in certain communities that if you can’t have a baby and you have someone who loves you who’s going to do that, they’ll do it for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075793\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075793\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2183738602.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2183738602.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2183738602-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2183738602-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A couple holds hands as they meet with a pregnant woman who is interviewing them for potential adoptive parents. \u003ccite>(SDI Productions via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What are the typical compensation rates for commercial surrogacy in California?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald: \u003c/strong>It varies a lot. So this is what the women themselves get paid. This has nothing to do with what the doctors charge or what the agencies charge. Typical rates were in the $30,000 to $50,000 range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I still do sometimes see that. But I also recently saw a $120,000 fee to the surrogate herself. So it’s really jumped during and since COVID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are there protections around surrogacy in California?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald: \u003c/strong>Every surrogate I’ve ever represented has been looking for the same reassurance that intended parents look for, which is that she’s not doing this because she wants another child. And she wants to know that no matter what, the intended parents can’t bail. That the baby will be theirs, that she will not be legally and financially responsible for a child that’s not genetically hers, and that she never intended to parent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California law actually requires that a surrogate have a right to independent legal counsel of her own choosing. It can’t be the same attorney who works for the agency or the same attorney who’s representing the intended parents.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>She has a right to have all her medical care paid for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our law is clear that until the moment she gives birth, even if there’s been a pre-birth determination that the intended parents will be the legal parents, that doesn’t go into effect till the moment she gives birth. So there won’t be conflict over her right to make medical choices for herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In any state, when a woman gives birth, she’s the mother unless a court has said she isn’t. And so, for the intended parents to become the legal parents, there has to be an actual court action in almost every state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, we do allow that court action to happen before the baby’s born, so there is complete clarity at the moment of birth as to who the parents are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It facilitates medical decision-making for the baby. It facilitates making sure the baby is on the parents’ health insurance from the beginning. And that the intended parents are able to take the baby home from the hospital. That if the surrogate is ready to be discharged before the baby is, she’s free to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a number of benefits to having everything clear before the baby’s born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are there future regulations that experts are looking at?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald:\u003c/strong> I was one of the attorneys who worked on our statutory structure for gestational surrogacy in California, with an eye toward making sure surrogates were well protected by it. But [Kofman’s reporting] certainly has brought other holes to light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things in real time we’re talking about right now is enacting a surrogate’s Bill of Rights for the state of California, that would include the protections we already have, [like] that she has a right to make her own medical decisions, that she has a right to counsel and good health insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Particularly in response to the Mark Surrogacy situation, we’re talking about including that she has a right to better disclosures about who she’s carrying for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046881\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12046881 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/MaternityLeaveGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/MaternityLeaveGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/MaternityLeaveGetty1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/MaternityLeaveGetty1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California law actually requires that a surrogate have a right to independent legal counsel of her own choosing. It can’t be the same attorney who works for the agency or the same attorney who’s representing the intended parents. \u003ccite>(MoMo Productions/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kofman: \u003c/strong>Just from doing this reporting and talking to so many of these surrogates, I’d like to just lift up kind of what they’ve told me they want to see the most, which is just a lot more transparency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They went through such extensive vetting — psychological evaluations. Now, it’s also clear that some intended parents do the same, but that’s not often the case. That certainly wasn’t the case here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there’s already such a kind of a potential for a power asymmetry. There’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/us-news/surrogacy-unregulated-debts-profits-b9fdd987?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqc6VTBbJAQD14SIAJz06ZQSQDHkRTqfwaxeHircQ2OXbcTIQyPrfEzaejcoZ00%3D&gaa_ts=69af9a29&gaa_sig=AT4QNSJUCK78FyjVv_Gy3eOaEI6-EBddUwynFBqmzVqMDiQ8IvkGBGtKEFnqfoJY_jle0jk_Hqms2DbkPDTmwA%3D%3D\">a financial asymmetry in the exchange\u003c/a>, of course … just rectifying that with truly independent legal counsel, with the ability for agencies to ask hard questions of the parents, like they’re asking of the surrogates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And for the surrogates to just know what they’re getting into. A surrogate wants to know if they’re bringing a baby into a home with 15 other children or a home with one other child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Thinking of Elon Musk, some people may wonder about the \u003cem>number \u003c/em>of kids families may be having. Can you speak about this a little bit? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald: \u003c/strong>What was one of the things that was so unusual about this case was, you know, people actually raising all, I mean, even Elon Musk, I don’t think he’s actually raising the 14 children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But who’s supposed to decide that? It makes me very nervous to think about the state determining how many children a family can have. I agree that there’s an ethical and moral conversation to be had. State regulation is different from that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11934757\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11934757 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327.jpg\" alt=\"The midsection of a pregnant Black woman holding her belly.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/GettyImages-694024327-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“People are drawn to being surrogates for all sorts of different reasons, but for many of them, like Kayla, this was something they wanted to do to kind of try to make a difference,” The New Yorker’s Ava Kofman said. \u003ccite>(LWA/Dann Tardif via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What about strengthening requirements for setting up surrogacy \u003cem>agencies\u003c/em>? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kofman:\u003c/strong> Right now, it’s very easy to set up a surrogacy agency in every state but New York. [States don’t] require any sort of license. It’s much easier to set up a surrogacy agency than it is to set up a hair salon or adoption agency or child care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wald: \u003c/strong>Within the \u003ca href=\"https://www.acal.org/\">Academy of California Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Lawyers\u003c/a>, we’re definitely looking at the New York statute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is something we’re looking at, whether we should look at a licensing requirement in the state of California and what that would look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not easy to get legislation passed. That’s probably true in every state. It’s certainly true in this state. And particularly if it’s gonna cost the state money. So who’s gonna regulate that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So we have to look at all of that when we try to figure out how realistic it is. But I can tell you that there are big conversations happening and a lot of smart, ethical people invested in trying to figure out how to make sure nothing like this happens again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "bay-area-rep-john-garamendi-confirms-travis-air-force-base-used-by-us-in-iran-war",
"title": "Bay Area Rep. John Garamendi Confirms Travis Air Force Base Used by US in Iran War",
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"headTitle": "Bay Area Rep. John Garamendi Confirms Travis Air Force Base Used by US in Iran War | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> Rep. John Garamendi confirmed Wednesday that aircraft from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/travis-air-force-base\">Travis Air Force Base\u003c/a> in Fairfield are involved in ongoing United States military operations in Iran and criticized the administration’s attacks on civilians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The refueling programs and planes at Travis most definitely are involved, and undoubtedly the transports are also,” Garamendi, who represents parts of the East and North Bay, which includes the base, told KQED. “As of [Wednesday] morning, no service members directly associated with Travis have been injured or killed. That may change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials with the base directed KQED to the U.S. Central Command, who did not respond to questions about Travis’s role in the war or the scope of the base’s involvement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garamendi also confirmed reports that a refueling aircraft from Beale Air Force Base, north of Sacramento, was involved in an incident that resulted in the death of six service members last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Central Command said in a statement at the time that two KC-135 refueling tankers were flying over friendly airspace when one of the planes crashed in Iraq, killing all six aboard. The other, from Beale, landed safely in Israel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” Central Command said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037936\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12037936\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A KC-10 Extender is parked on the ramp as a C-5M Super Galaxy takes off at Travis Air Force Base, California, on March 16, 2017. \u003ccite>(Hum Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pictures of the plane that landed, published by Israeli media, show a damaged tail fin and markings identifying it as coming from Beale AFB.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The crew apparently was not from Beale,” Garamendi said, “and the plane that did crash was not from Beale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the start of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, U.S. Northern Command ordered heightened security measures at military installations across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075513/travis-air-force-base-beefs-up-security-amid-iran-war#:~:text=Katie%20DeBenedetti,military%20infrastructure%20and%20senior%20leaders.\">Travis told KQED\u003c/a> earlier this month that valid identification would be required for all personnel and visitors and warned people to expect delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garamendi, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has been highly critical of America’s attacks on Iran and of its handling by top members of the Trump administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.[aside postID=news_12075377 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/RoKhannaGetty1.jpg']“The entire operation is illegal, unconstitutional,” Garamendi said. “In this case, the president simply woke up one morning and decided he’s going to go to war. [He] never consulted Congress, and the result of that is the chaos that exists. Chaos within the operations, the missile strike on a school. We undoubtedly will have additional casualties, civilian casualties.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Donald Trump has deflected questions about whether America was responsible for a missile strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed roughly 170 civilians, mostly young girls. When asked, he suggested that Iran was responsible for the strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003cem>the New York Times \u003c/em>has reported that preliminary findings from the military investigation into the strike point to the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The final report from the Department of Defense has not been issued,” Garamendi said. “All of the information that has been gathered, both public and private, would lead to the conclusion that it was an American missile.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garamendi and other members of Congress recently signed a letter to Hegseth requesting information on this specific bombing and on the U.S. efforts to minimize civilian casualties. The congressman said he hopes to get answers soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here we are in week three of this war, and it looks as though there’s going to be more days ahead and more deaths. Hopefully no more schools, but we’ll see.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> Rep. John Garamendi confirmed Wednesday that aircraft from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/travis-air-force-base\">Travis Air Force Base\u003c/a> in Fairfield are involved in ongoing United States military operations in Iran and criticized the administration’s attacks on civilians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The refueling programs and planes at Travis most definitely are involved, and undoubtedly the transports are also,” Garamendi, who represents parts of the East and North Bay, which includes the base, told KQED. “As of [Wednesday] morning, no service members directly associated with Travis have been injured or killed. That may change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials with the base directed KQED to the U.S. Central Command, who did not respond to questions about Travis’s role in the war or the scope of the base’s involvement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garamendi also confirmed reports that a refueling aircraft from Beale Air Force Base, north of Sacramento, was involved in an incident that resulted in the death of six service members last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Central Command said in a statement at the time that two KC-135 refueling tankers were flying over friendly airspace when one of the planes crashed in Iraq, killing all six aboard. The other, from Beale, landed safely in Israel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” Central Command said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037936\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12037936\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/TravisAirForceBaseGetty2-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A KC-10 Extender is parked on the ramp as a C-5M Super Galaxy takes off at Travis Air Force Base, California, on March 16, 2017. \u003ccite>(Hum Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pictures of the plane that landed, published by Israeli media, show a damaged tail fin and markings identifying it as coming from Beale AFB.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The crew apparently was not from Beale,” Garamendi said, “and the plane that did crash was not from Beale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the start of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, U.S. Northern Command ordered heightened security measures at military installations across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075513/travis-air-force-base-beefs-up-security-amid-iran-war#:~:text=Katie%20DeBenedetti,military%20infrastructure%20and%20senior%20leaders.\">Travis told KQED\u003c/a> earlier this month that valid identification would be required for all personnel and visitors and warned people to expect delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garamendi, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has been highly critical of America’s attacks on Iran and of its handling by top members of the Trump administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The entire operation is illegal, unconstitutional,” Garamendi said. “In this case, the president simply woke up one morning and decided he’s going to go to war. [He] never consulted Congress, and the result of that is the chaos that exists. Chaos within the operations, the missile strike on a school. We undoubtedly will have additional casualties, civilian casualties.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Donald Trump has deflected questions about whether America was responsible for a missile strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed roughly 170 civilians, mostly young girls. When asked, he suggested that Iran was responsible for the strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003cem>the New York Times \u003c/em>has reported that preliminary findings from the military investigation into the strike point to the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The final report from the Department of Defense has not been issued,” Garamendi said. “All of the information that has been gathered, both public and private, would lead to the conclusion that it was an American missile.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garamendi and other members of Congress recently signed a letter to Hegseth requesting information on this specific bombing and on the U.S. efforts to minimize civilian casualties. The congressman said he hopes to get answers soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here we are in week three of this war, and it looks as though there’s going to be more days ahead and more deaths. Hopefully no more schools, but we’ll see.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "who-is-the-bear-on-the-california-flag-a-story-bigger-than-one-legend",
"title": "Who Is the Bear on the California Flag? A Story Bigger Than One Legend",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View\u003c/a>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\"> the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many state flags stick to geometric designs. Wyoming has a buffalo, Louisiana has a pelican. But the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> flag has a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Bay Curious\u003c/em> listener Mark Karn was researching the flag one day when he found an unexpected story behind it, one that has been repeated for many years in newspapers, videos, and websites. He read that the bear on California’s flag was modeled after a famous bear named Monarch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as he looked into the history further, Karn started to have doubts. He noticed some inconsistencies in the story that made him question whether Monarch was indeed the bear on our flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California used to have thousands of grizzlies\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before the Gold Rush, historians estimate there were \u003ca href=\"https://nhmlac.org/california-grizzly-bear#:~:text=Some%20have%20estimated%20that%20California,skins%20and%20skeletons%20in%20existence.\">10,000 grizzly bears\u003c/a> in California, living alongside hundreds of thousands of Native Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Spanish ranchers and then gold miners who flooded into California in the 1800s portrayed the animals as brutal, bloodthirsty killers, even though grizzlies mostly minded their own business unless provoked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076801\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076801\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1339\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-04-KQED-1536x1028.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">It is often said that the bear on the modern California state flag is based on “Monarch,” one of the last grizzly bears to live in the state. But researchers now believe it was based on the drawing of another bear, Samson. \u003ccite>(Joseph Sohm/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“You see the bear being really cast as this obstacle to progress, much like the wolves and much like native people,” said Devlin Gandy, tribal liaison for the California Grizzly Alliance. “As something that has to be done away with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bounties on grizzlies became common. Ranchers often put strychnine onto the carcasses of dead cows. By the late 1800s, very few grizzlies were left in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Monarch the bear’s infamous life\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1887, after getting kicked out of Harvard for bad behavior, William Randolph Hearst landed back in his hometown of San Francisco, where his father gave him a small newspaper called the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was in his 20s and thought it would be great publicity if someone from the Examiner could capture one of the last California grizzly bears and bring it back to San Francisco alive. So, he tasked one of his reporters, Allen Kelly, with the assignment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly had never actually hunted a bear before. But he strapped on a bandolier of ammunition and struck out for the mountains of Southern California, where it was rumored there were still a few grizzlies left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076803\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076803\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-06-KQED-160x128.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-06-KQED-1536x1229.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The taxidermied form of Monarch the bear is part of an exhibit called California: State of Nature on display at the California Academy of Sciences. \u003ccite>(Gayle Laird/California Academy of Sciences)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With help from local hunters, Kelly spent months hiking around the mountains looking for bears with no luck. But eventually, a monstrous grizzly came to his camp and walked into one of the traps he had set.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least, that’s how \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/460837694/?match=1&terms=monarch%20the%20bear\">Kelly reported\u003c/a> it in the \u003cem>Examiner \u003c/em>at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Gandy thinks there was no trap. “[Monarch] was actually probably captured by some of the vaqueros using lassos,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sure enough, Kelly later \u003ca href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15276/15276-h/15276-h.htm#chap02\">retold his story\u003c/a> in a book, this time saying that some Mexicans caught the bear, and he heard about it and went and bought it from them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076813\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076813\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-08-KQED.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-08-KQED-160x96.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An 1875 image of Woodward’s Gardens, an attraction that was open in the Mission District from 1866 to 189. It featured a museum, art gallery, zoo, rides and more. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kelly called the bear “Monarch,” as an advertisement for the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>, which had the slogan: “The Monarch of the Dailies.” He brought Monarch, via sled, wagon and train, to a place called Woodward’s Garden in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 1800’s, \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/Woodward%27s_Gardens,_c._1860s\">Woodward’s Garden \u003c/a>was an amusement park in the Mission, near where the Armory is now. It had an aquatic carousel, balloon rides, camel rides and an 8-foot-3-inch-tall man who was billed as a giant. It was kind of a carnival, and a sign of its times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarch stayed there for five years, in a cage so small he could barely turn around in it. Then he was moved to the World’s Fair in Golden Gate Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fair, called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/California_Midwinter_Fair_of_1894:_An_Orientalist_Exposition\">California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894\u003c/a>, took up 200 acres in Golden Gate Park. It was built like an amusement park, with large outdoor attractions. There were Inuit people on display — real people — in a village of papier-mache igloos. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/sfhistory/article/the-racist-fair-that-almost-ruined-golden-gate-16770528.php\">There was a Japanese village\u003c/a>, which is now the Japanese Tea Garden. And a \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/378308351/?match=1&terms=%2749%20mining%20camp\">pretend mining camp\u003c/a>, where you could go to a saloon and see a grizzly bear — Monarch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the fair, Monarch was moved to his final home — a cage in Golden Gate Park’s menagerie — where the AIDS Memorial Grove is now. The menagerie had bison, kangaroos, elk, an aviary and now a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You could walk up to the enclosure [and] stick your arm in if you wanted to,” said Rebekah Kim, head librarian at the California Academy of Sciences. “You could throw peanuts or whatever snacks you wanted to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076816\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076816\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-09-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-09-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-09-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-09-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A young guest inspects Monarch the bear, on view for the first time since 2012 at Cal Academy’s “California: State of Nature” exhibition. \u003ccite>(Gayle Laird/California Academy of Sciences)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And Monarch lived there for the rest of his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see many times he looks pretty sad behind bars,” said Kim, referencing a historic photograph of Monarch resting his head against the side of his cage, staring, it seems, at nothing. And in 1911, after over two decades in captivity, Monarch died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At that point, he was very overweight; he was paralyzed,” said Kim, “Their way of euthanasia was like a policeman coming and shooting him in the head.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarch was one of the last of his kind. California grizzlies were classified as a distinct subspecies, and for over half a century, they had been relentlessly, systematically poisoned, hunted and trapped. By the 1920s, scientists believed them to be extinct.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How California ended up with a bear on its flag\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1846, grizzly bears were all over California, which was still part of Mexico. That year, a group of about 30 American settlers rebelled against the Mexican government and took over the town of Sonoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They painted a bear and a star on a sheet, raised it above town, and proclaimed themselves an independent nation: “the California Republic.” They said the grizzly \u003ca href=\"https://bearflagmuseum.blogspot.com/2009/08/william-b-ide-on-creation-of-bear-flag.html\">symbolized\u003c/a> “strength and unyielding resistance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076800\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1474px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076800\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1474\" height=\"848\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-03-KQED.jpg 1474w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-03-KQED-160x92.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1474px) 100vw, 1474px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This 1855 illustration of the grizzly bear, Samson, was made by artist Charles Nahl. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The bear on that flag bore little resemblance to our current flag’s bear. “[It looks like] maybe a bear or a pig or a dog, right? It’s so hard to tell,” Kim said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The independent republic didn’t last; California soon became part of the United States. The bear flag stuck around, but everybody was drawing it in a different way. Some versions had the bear standing up, on others it was perched up at the top of the flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1911, California adopted the bear flag as its state flag, and the legislature set guidelines, saying the bear must be in the middle, walking toward the left, and dark brown. In 1953, the state decided to standardize the flag further and try to make the bear look more like a bear, rather than a wolf or a pig. A zoologist was brought in to advise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076799\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1099px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12076799 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1099\" height=\"621\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-02-KQED.jpg 1099w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-02-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1099px) 100vw, 1099px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph of an illustration showing the raising of the Bear Flag over Sonoma, June 14, 1846. The California Republic flag, complete with grizzly bear, star and stripe, is being raised on the pole. In the background is the home of General Vallejo, an army barracks and a church. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here’s where the urban legend begins. Many sources report that since all the California grizzlies were dead by then, the flag’s artist used the taxidermied form of Monarch, which was even then on display at the California Academy of Sciences, as a reference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Kim doesn’t buy it. She studied the relevant historical documents, especially the correspondence between the zoologist and the flag’s artist. According to the letters, the men used as their main reference a different grizzly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the 1850s, a man named James Capen Adams, better known as Grizzly Adams, opened the Mountaineer Museum in San Francisco. It was on Clay Street, just a few blocks from where the Ferry Building is today. It had several live grizzlies chained to the floor, as well as elk, mountain lions, and a few eagles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the rear, in a very large iron cage, was a massive grizzly named Samson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A painter called Charles Nahl made illustrations for \u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/adventuresofjame00hittrich/page/n9/mode/2up\">a book\u003c/a> about Adams, and one of his paintings was of \u003ca href=\"https://bancroftlibrarycara.wordpress.com/nahl_grizzly_monterey_image_cropped/\">Samson\u003c/a>. It’s \u003cem>that\u003c/em> painting, of Samson, that was consistently used as a reference for the California state flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The California grizzly’s undeserved reputation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Not only did Monarch’s story get distorted and manipulated, but so did the story of all the California grizzlies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most wrong part of it was the idea that the extinction of grizzly bears in California was inevitable and the recovery of them is impossible,” said Peter Alagona, a professor in the environmental studies program at UC Santa Barbara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Together with a team of researchers, Alagona analyzed Monarch’s bones and fur, along with those of other grizzlies. He found startling results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076817\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076817\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fran Ritchie of the California Academy of Sciences works to restore Monarch’s fur. \u003ccite>(Gayle Laird/California Academy of Sciences)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It turns out, California grizzlies were mostly vegetarian and averaged around 500 pounds, much smaller than the monstrous sizes attributed to them. Perhaps most surprisingly, they are genetically indistinguishable from modern-day grizzlies in Yellowstone and Montana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re gone from California, but they’re not really extinct,” said Alagona. “They just kind of live in Montana right now. It’s the same bear. It’s just not here at the moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Alagona is working with the California Grizzly Alliance, which proposes \u003ca href=\"https://www.calgrizzly.org/\">bringing grizzlies back\u003c/a> to the state.[aside postID=news_12076077 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251212-JET-PLAYGROUND-MD-09-KQED.jpg']He’s aware that to many people this sounds like a very bad idea. But the concept is to start with just a couple of animals, very closely monitored, in a very remote area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They do a lot of amazing things,” he said. “They turn over soil and enrich the soil. They are by far the biggest seed dispersers of any animal out there in the world on a per capita basis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alagona’s research suggests that with sufficient numbers and time, grizzlies could even change the state’s vegetation and create firebreaks. But to him, the most important benefit is less tangible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re more about imagination,” Alagona said. “They’re more about this idea that yes, we can restore things that seem unrestorable. To me, that’s what the bear does for us is it enables you to see a different kind of future by showing you a little bit more about yourself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Out of the 50 states that make up the union, California is considered pretty cool. We’ve got the good weather, the stunning coastline, those laid-back vibes. And we’ve definitely got a cool state flag. If you’ve looked at other flags, many stick to geometric designs. Wyoming does have a buffalo. Louisiana’s got a pelican. But California? Our flag has a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Bay Curious\u003c/em> listener Mark Karn was researching the flag one day,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>I like to read a lot, and whenever I read, I like to, um, go off on tangents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>He found an unexpected story behind it — one that has been repeated for many years in newspapers, videos, and websites. He read that the bear on our flag was modeled after a famous bear named Monarch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarch was one of California’s last grizzlies, captured in the mountains and then put on display in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>I kind of deep dived into Monarch the bear. I was fascinated by it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Mark has always had a passion for wild animals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>I was born in Nigeria and grew up in South Africa. I love looking at nature in its wild state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>As a teenager, he would take a book out to a remote watering hole where he’d read and wait for animals to come and drink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>And I used to see a little, uh, a duiker. A duiker is a very small antelope. I used to watch the duiker come and, and drink water at the water hole. Definitely one of my most memorable moments, and you know, my happy memories. \u003cem>(Laughs.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>So, Mark was dismayed to learn that Monarch, this big, powerful grizzly, was kept behind bars for most of his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>I kind of cringe at animals in zoos. You know, they supposedly live longer, but to me there’s a, a beauty that they lack when they’re in a cage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And while he was doing his own research, he noticed some inconsistencies in Monarch’s story that made him question if Monarch was indeed the bear on our flag. So he reached out to \u003cem>Bay Curious\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>The bear on the California flag, is it the actual Monarch the Bear that they claim it is?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>To find out if it really was, and to sort through some of the other legends around the bear, reporter Katherine Monahan went to meet Monarch. Or rather, his taxidermied form, more than a century old, on display at the California Academy of Sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sounds of chatter and kids in an echoey space\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> It’s a weekday afternoon, and the academy is packed with kids and families, mostly checking out the aquarium or the T-rex. They don’t all head for this dimly lit corner of the California exhibit. But those who do\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor: \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Wow. That is crazy. Man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Get to see a California grizzly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 2: \u003c/strong>Did you know we had grizzly bears?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 3: \u003c/strong>We don’t have ’em anymore, do we?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Monarch is powerful-looking, with a muscular hump above his shoulders. He’s dark and shaggy and bigger than a black bear for sure, but not nearly as big as, say, a two-ton polar bear. His claws, though\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 2: \u003c/strong>They look lethal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> They’re easily as long as my fingers. There’s a cast paw print where people can put their own hand in to compare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 4: \u003c/strong>Go put your hand in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 5: \u003c/strong>Oh my goodness. That’s just the palm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Monarch is standing flat on all fours with kind of a Mona Lisa smile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 6: \u003c/strong>Was he old?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> He looks peaceful. But then, he is taxidermied, quite literally a puppet. And we could have made him look however we wanted. Which, in many ways, is what we did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music starts\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy:\u003c/strong> So much of what we know about grizzlies is a myth. It’s fictitious, it’s fear-based.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> That’s Devlin Gandy, tribal liaison for the California Grizzly Alliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says it’s estimated there were ten thousand grizzly bears in the state before the California Gold Rush. And, hundreds of thousands of Native Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>It’s very abundantly clear that they not only existed alongside grizzlies, but they thrived with grizzlies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> But the Spanish ranchers and then the gold miners who flooded into California in the 1800s saw the bears differently. They told sensational stories that featured the animals as brutal, bloodthirsty killers — even though grizzlies mostly minded their own business unless provoked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>You see the bear being really cast as this, um, obstacle to progress, much like the wolves and much like native people, and as something that, you know, has to be done away with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Bounties on grizzlies became common. Mostly, they were killed with poison. Ranchers put strychnine onto the carcasses of dead cows. By the late 1800s, very few grizzlies were left in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>It’s a time of extreme ecological degradation, and you start to get this romanticism for the West, this romantic notion of Native Americans and wildlife. And Monarch falls right into that narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Enter William Randolph Hearst. In 1887, after getting kicked out of Harvard for bad behavior, he landed back in his hometown of San Francisco. Where his father gave him a small newspaper called the San Francisco Examiner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>Hearst is leading this new wave of journalism that has a lot of sensationalism tied to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> He was about 25 years old. And he thought it would be great publicity if someone from the Examiner could capture a live grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he asked one of his reporters, Allen Kelly, to do it. Kelly clearly got right into character, as you can see in his portrait from the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>He has these bandoliers of ammunition on both sides of his chest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s just like he’s trying to be Rambo. You’re like, what are you doing, dude?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Kelly had never actually hunted a bear before. So when he struck out for the mountains of Southern California, where it was rumored there were still a few grizzlies left, he hired local helpers. They were happy to oblige.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>A man coming from San Francisco with a blank check from one of the richest men in California to go on a bear hunt? That sounds absolutely great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> They led this city-slicker journalist around in circles, all the while camping and eating well and seeing plenty of bear sign, but not trapping any bears. Kelly eventually caught on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>He starts to realize that all these grizzly bear tracks that he’s seeing are actually probably not being made by a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> So he fired his crew. But by then he’d been gone for five months, and he was getting desperate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>Like, I need a bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Just then, a monstrous grizzly came to his camp, conquered a cinnamon bear called Six-Toed Pete in an epic moonlit battle, and walked into his trap. At least, that’s how Kelly reported it in the Examiner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice over reads newspaper clipping: \u003c/strong>A great ripping and tearing was heard going on inside. The Monarch was caught at last. Upon the approach of men, the grizzly became furious and made the heavy logs tremble and shake in his efforts to get out and resent the indignity that had been put upon him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> But Gandy thinks there was no trap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>He was actually probably captured by some of the vaqueros using lassos. And when they’re able to use four different horses to pull the bear’s arms and legs in four different directions, you have a bear that basically is stuck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> About fifteen years later, Kelly \u003ca href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15276/15276-h/15276-h.htm#chap02\">retold his story\u003c/a> in a book, this time saying that some Mexicans caught the bear, and he heard about it and went and bought it from them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless, he still had to transport it to San Francisco. Which he reports in swashbuckling, self-aggrandizing detail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice over reads newspaper clipping: \u003c/strong>The Monarch was now bound, gagged, and utterly helpless, but he never ceased roaring with rage at his captors and struggling to get just one swipe at them with his paw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Naming the bear “Monarch” was kind of an advertisement for the Examiner, which had the slogan “The Monarch of the Dailies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly describes how the grizzly broke his teeth trying to gnaw through his chains. How he tied Monarch to a kind of sled and hauled him down the mountain, and then built a cage and mounted it on a wagon and then a train for San Francisco … to a place called Woodward’s Garden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> In the late 1800’s, Woodward’s Garden was an amusement park in the Mission, near where the Armory is now. It had an aquatic carousel, balloon rides, camel rides, an eight foot three inch tall man who was billed as a giant . . . It was kind of a carnival. And a sign of its time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Academy of Sciences head librarian Rebekah Kim shows me a picture of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>They had, like, live bears jumping from like a diving board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan: \u003c/strong>Whoa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim:\u003c/strong> Oh, and then bears in captivity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The Examiner covered Monarch’s arrival at the garden with great drama: how one of the black bears died of fright when he arrived. How he tore through his cage into the hyena enclosure and rolled up sheets of iron like they were paper. How he was the only grizzly bear in captivity (which is not true. There was another one at the Oregon Zoo). How he weighed a thousand pounds (also not true).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ambi of chatter at the Academy of Sciences\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Back at Monarch’s taxidermy display, we talk about how the fabled massiveness of grizzly bears was yet another tall tale\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> I have never seen a grizzly, and I thought they’d be a lot bigger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>No, actually, technically. Monarch is a little overweight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Kim explains that despite grizzlies’ reputation for being huge and vicious\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>They were mostly vegan. And they probably weighed close to like 500 ish pounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan: \u003c/strong>Why would you bother being vegan with a body like that? Look at those claws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>I don’t know. I mean, and that’s the thing, it’s like a dispelling a myth. I think California grizzlies were hunted down because they were thought to be, um, apex predators and a threat to livestock and people, but they really weren’t going after those things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> It turns out the claws, along with the muscular hump on the shoulders, are really for digging. Grizzlies are omnivores, and eat mostly vegetarian. In captivity, however,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>Monarch’s diet consisted of biscuits, sugar, peanuts, not his natural diet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> No wonder he is portly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>He is. He was like, um, I don’t know exactly, around 900 pounds. So double the normal size of a grizzly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Monarch stayed in Woodward’s Garden for five years, in a cage so small he could barely turn around in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>And then he moved to the World’s Fair in Golden Gate Park as part of like the 49 ERs camp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Wait a second. \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/457584756/?match=1&terms=monarch%20the%20bear\">As a live bear. He was in the World Fair?\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>Yeah, he was. There’s, oh, I have a picture somewhere. He’s like in a pit. It’s actually really sad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The 1894 World’s Fair took up 200 acres in Golden Gate Park. It was built like an amusement park, with large outdoor attractions. There were Inuit people on display, real people, in a village of papier-mache igloos. There was a Japanese village, which is now the Japanese Tea Garden. And a \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/378308351/?match=1&terms=%2749%20mining%20camp\">pretend mining camp\u003c/a>, where you could go to a saloon and see a grizzly bear. Here’s, once again, the San Francisco Examiner:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice over reads newspaper clipping: \u003c/strong>Monarch, the Examiner bear, is a wild and untamed beast, and has not yet been told that one of the lion tribe is likely to invade his home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Fairgoers were clamouring for a lion to be dropped into Monarch’s concrete pit so they’d fight. But the fair managers, in a rare moment of good taste, refused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the World’s Fair, Monarch was moved to his final home — a cage in Golden Gate Park’s menagerie, where the AIDS Memorial Grove is now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>You could see a bunch of different animals. It was free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> This was the late 1800s, well before the San Francisco Zoo, and really before any real understanding of how to run a zoo. The park had bison, as it still does, but also kangaroos and elk and an aviary. And a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>You could walk up to the enclosure, stick your arm in if you wanted to. Um, and you could throw peanuts or whatever snacks you wanted to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> And Monarch lived there for the rest of his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>There’s a lot of historic photos. You can see many times he looks pretty sad behind bars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> She shows me one of Monarch resting his head against the side of his cage, staring, it seems, into nothing. After the first decade, his keepers became concerned by his apparent depression and brought a female grizzly called Montana Babe. Over time, they had several cubs. Some of them died. And in 1911, after over two decades in captivity, Monarch died too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>At that point. He was very overweight, he was like paralyzed and not moving, and so the, I think their way of euthanasia was like a policeman coming and shooting him in the head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Monarch was one of the last of his kind. California grizzlies were classified as a distinct subspecies. And for over half a century, they had been relentlessly, systematically poisoned, hunted and trapped. By the 1920s, they were extinct … or so we believed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> When we come back, we turn to Mark’s question. \u003cem>Is Monarch\u003c/em> the bear on the California flag? Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor break\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Now we come to the question of our state flag, featuring a strong and proud-looking grizzly bear. Our question asker, Mark Karn, wanted to know if, as the legend goes, \u003cem>Monarch\u003c/em> is the bear on the flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s Katherine Monahan again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The history of the bear flag goes way back – to before California was even a state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1846, grizzly bears were all over California, which was still part of Mexico. That year, a group of about thirty American settlers rebelled against the Mexican government and took over the town of Sonoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They painted a bear and a star on a sheet, raised it above town, and proclaimed themselves an independent nation. The California Republic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Academy of Sciences head librarian Rebekah Kim shows me a picture of their flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>The first one is just like a silhouette of a. You think maybe a bear or a pig or a dog, right? It’s so hard to tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> To the rebels, the grizzly \u003ca href=\"https://bearflagmuseum.blogspot.com/2009/08/william-b-ide-on-creation-of-bear-flag.html\">symbolized\u003c/a> “strength and unyielding resistance.” Their new republic didn’t last – California soon became part of the United States. But the bear flag stuck around. Only everybody was drawing it in a different way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>There’s another variation where the bear is up on its hind legs and kind of standing up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> In 1911, California decided to make it the state flag. And the state legislature set guidelines, saying the bear must be in the middle, walking toward the left, and it must be dark brown\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>But there are no specific specifications about what it’s supposed to look like, so then, depending on the printer, you can get a different version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> So, in 1953, the legislature decided we needed to standardize the flag and try to make the bear look more reliably like a bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>And so there is a zoologist who is an expert on California grizzlies, who’s sort of informing the designer about how to change the image to make it less like either a wolf or like a pig.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The problem was, all the California grizzlies were dead by then. So what could the artist look at for a reference? The taxidermied form of Monarch could have been helpful, and there is a 1953 article in the San Francisco Chronicle that suggests it was part of the process. But Kim doesn’t buy it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>No. Looking at the historical documents of the illustrator. All the back and forth is not about Monarch. The references he uses is a different illustration and some, um, images of other grizzlies in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> So it’s. Kind of an urban legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>It is, and it is perpetuated by lots of sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Kim herself was one of them, until she did this research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong> I was like, oh no, I’ve told people, like I’ve told the wrong thing to people. Cause that has been the narrative that we’ve been fed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The real model for the California state flag, as it turns out, was Samson, another famous grizzly that spent time in San Francisco long before Monarch showed up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the 1850s, a man named James Capen Adams, better known as Grizzly Adams, opened the Mountaineer Museum in San Francisco. It was on Clay Street, just a few blocks from where the Ferry Building is today. A newspaper reporter described a dingy basement with several live grizzlies chained to the floor. There were also elk, mountain lions, and a few eagles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice over reads newspaper clipping:\u003c/strong> At the rear, in a very large iron cage, was the monster grizzly Samson. He was an immense creature weighing some three-quarters of a ton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> A painter called Charles Nahl made a detailed portrait of Samson. And \u003cem>that\u003c/em> painting of \u003cem>that\u003c/em> bear was consistently used as a reference for the California state flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>The entire story was, was wrong in a lot of ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Pete Alagona is a professor in the environmental studies program at UC Santa Barbara. He says not only did \u003cem>Monarch’s \u003c/em>story get distorted and manipulated, but so did the story of all the California grizzlies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>And the most wrong part of it was the idea that the extinction of grizzly bears in California was inevitable, and the recovery of them is impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> To get closer to the truth, Alagona analyzed Monarch’s bones and fur, along with those of other grizzlies. His team found startling results. It turns out California grizzlies are genetically indistinguishable from modern-day grizzlies in Yellowstone and Montana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>They’re gone from California, but they’re not really extinct. They just kind of live in Montana right now. It’s the same bear. It’s just not here at the moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Now, Alagona is working with the California Grizzly Alliance, which proposes \u003ca href=\"https://www.calgrizzly.org/\">bringing grizzlies back\u003c/a> to the state. The idea is to start with just a couple of animals, very closely monitored, in a very remote area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> You are aware that to a lot of people, the idea of reintroducing grizzlies sounds pretty nuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>Um, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> What’s, what’s your response to that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>So, you know, when I started this project, it sounded nuts to me too. I wasn’t interested in that. I was just interested in learning about them. And as I went further along, I realized, it’s totally possible. Which means it’s a choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> And if it’s a choice, he figures, we should make it an informed one by learning more about grizzlies. And not, this time, from what people have said about them, but by studying the animals themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>They do a lot of amazing things. They turn over soil and enrich the soil. They are by far the biggest seed dispersers of any animal out there in the world on a per capita basis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> He says the biggest benefits that grizzlies might bring back to California, though, are not really about the ecosystem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>They’re more about. Imagination. They’re more about this idea that yes, we can restore things that seem unrestorable. Yes, there is a possibility for things that seem impossible. To me, that’s what the bear does for us is it enables you to see a different kind of future by showing you a little bit more about yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Maybe Monarch’s story is a kind of allegory for our present moment. On one hand, we live in a time of severe environmental loss, and many of us, to some extent, feel it and can relate to the depressed, overweight captive bear. On the other hand, this is a time of incredible possibility. When enough of our natural world still lives that it may be able to make a comeback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Who knows if we’ll ever find grizzlies in California again? But for now, we have our flag — adorned with an image of the fierce, proud, mostly vegetarian bear — named Samson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was KQED’s Katherine Monahan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We are in the middle of our experiment of dropping two episodes a week, and we want to know what you think! Share your feedback with us by emailing \u003ca href=\"mailto:baycurious@kqed.org\">baycurious@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This question came from listener Mark Karn, and hey, who knows, a future episode could come from YOUR question. Our show is only possible because you keep asking them. Head to \u003ca href=\"http://baycurious.org\">BayCurious.org\u003c/a> and submit a question right at the top of the page.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Bay Curious\u003c/em> is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our show is made by Katrina Schwartz, Gabriella Glueck, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a good one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View\u003c/a>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\"> the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many state flags stick to geometric designs. Wyoming has a buffalo, Louisiana has a pelican. But the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> flag has a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Bay Curious\u003c/em> listener Mark Karn was researching the flag one day when he found an unexpected story behind it, one that has been repeated for many years in newspapers, videos, and websites. He read that the bear on California’s flag was modeled after a famous bear named Monarch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as he looked into the history further, Karn started to have doubts. He noticed some inconsistencies in the story that made him question whether Monarch was indeed the bear on our flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California used to have thousands of grizzlies\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before the Gold Rush, historians estimate there were \u003ca href=\"https://nhmlac.org/california-grizzly-bear#:~:text=Some%20have%20estimated%20that%20California,skins%20and%20skeletons%20in%20existence.\">10,000 grizzly bears\u003c/a> in California, living alongside hundreds of thousands of Native Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Spanish ranchers and then gold miners who flooded into California in the 1800s portrayed the animals as brutal, bloodthirsty killers, even though grizzlies mostly minded their own business unless provoked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076801\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076801\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1339\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-04-KQED-1536x1028.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">It is often said that the bear on the modern California state flag is based on “Monarch,” one of the last grizzly bears to live in the state. But researchers now believe it was based on the drawing of another bear, Samson. \u003ccite>(Joseph Sohm/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“You see the bear being really cast as this obstacle to progress, much like the wolves and much like native people,” said Devlin Gandy, tribal liaison for the California Grizzly Alliance. “As something that has to be done away with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bounties on grizzlies became common. Ranchers often put strychnine onto the carcasses of dead cows. By the late 1800s, very few grizzlies were left in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Monarch the bear’s infamous life\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1887, after getting kicked out of Harvard for bad behavior, William Randolph Hearst landed back in his hometown of San Francisco, where his father gave him a small newspaper called the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was in his 20s and thought it would be great publicity if someone from the Examiner could capture one of the last California grizzly bears and bring it back to San Francisco alive. So, he tasked one of his reporters, Allen Kelly, with the assignment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly had never actually hunted a bear before. But he strapped on a bandolier of ammunition and struck out for the mountains of Southern California, where it was rumored there were still a few grizzlies left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076803\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076803\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-06-KQED-160x128.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-06-KQED-1536x1229.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The taxidermied form of Monarch the bear is part of an exhibit called California: State of Nature on display at the California Academy of Sciences. \u003ccite>(Gayle Laird/California Academy of Sciences)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With help from local hunters, Kelly spent months hiking around the mountains looking for bears with no luck. But eventually, a monstrous grizzly came to his camp and walked into one of the traps he had set.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least, that’s how \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/460837694/?match=1&terms=monarch%20the%20bear\">Kelly reported\u003c/a> it in the \u003cem>Examiner \u003c/em>at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Gandy thinks there was no trap. “[Monarch] was actually probably captured by some of the vaqueros using lassos,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sure enough, Kelly later \u003ca href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15276/15276-h/15276-h.htm#chap02\">retold his story\u003c/a> in a book, this time saying that some Mexicans caught the bear, and he heard about it and went and bought it from them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076813\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076813\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-08-KQED.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-08-KQED-160x96.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An 1875 image of Woodward’s Gardens, an attraction that was open in the Mission District from 1866 to 189. It featured a museum, art gallery, zoo, rides and more. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kelly called the bear “Monarch,” as an advertisement for the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>, which had the slogan: “The Monarch of the Dailies.” He brought Monarch, via sled, wagon and train, to a place called Woodward’s Garden in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 1800’s, \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/Woodward%27s_Gardens,_c._1860s\">Woodward’s Garden \u003c/a>was an amusement park in the Mission, near where the Armory is now. It had an aquatic carousel, balloon rides, camel rides and an 8-foot-3-inch-tall man who was billed as a giant. It was kind of a carnival, and a sign of its times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarch stayed there for five years, in a cage so small he could barely turn around in it. Then he was moved to the World’s Fair in Golden Gate Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fair, called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/California_Midwinter_Fair_of_1894:_An_Orientalist_Exposition\">California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894\u003c/a>, took up 200 acres in Golden Gate Park. It was built like an amusement park, with large outdoor attractions. There were Inuit people on display — real people — in a village of papier-mache igloos. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/sfhistory/article/the-racist-fair-that-almost-ruined-golden-gate-16770528.php\">There was a Japanese village\u003c/a>, which is now the Japanese Tea Garden. And a \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/378308351/?match=1&terms=%2749%20mining%20camp\">pretend mining camp\u003c/a>, where you could go to a saloon and see a grizzly bear — Monarch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the fair, Monarch was moved to his final home — a cage in Golden Gate Park’s menagerie — where the AIDS Memorial Grove is now. The menagerie had bison, kangaroos, elk, an aviary and now a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You could walk up to the enclosure [and] stick your arm in if you wanted to,” said Rebekah Kim, head librarian at the California Academy of Sciences. “You could throw peanuts or whatever snacks you wanted to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076816\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076816\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-09-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-09-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-09-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-09-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A young guest inspects Monarch the bear, on view for the first time since 2012 at Cal Academy’s “California: State of Nature” exhibition. \u003ccite>(Gayle Laird/California Academy of Sciences)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And Monarch lived there for the rest of his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see many times he looks pretty sad behind bars,” said Kim, referencing a historic photograph of Monarch resting his head against the side of his cage, staring, it seems, at nothing. And in 1911, after over two decades in captivity, Monarch died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At that point, he was very overweight; he was paralyzed,” said Kim, “Their way of euthanasia was like a policeman coming and shooting him in the head.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarch was one of the last of his kind. California grizzlies were classified as a distinct subspecies, and for over half a century, they had been relentlessly, systematically poisoned, hunted and trapped. By the 1920s, scientists believed them to be extinct.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How California ended up with a bear on its flag\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1846, grizzly bears were all over California, which was still part of Mexico. That year, a group of about 30 American settlers rebelled against the Mexican government and took over the town of Sonoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They painted a bear and a star on a sheet, raised it above town, and proclaimed themselves an independent nation: “the California Republic.” They said the grizzly \u003ca href=\"https://bearflagmuseum.blogspot.com/2009/08/william-b-ide-on-creation-of-bear-flag.html\">symbolized\u003c/a> “strength and unyielding resistance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076800\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1474px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076800\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1474\" height=\"848\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-03-KQED.jpg 1474w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-03-KQED-160x92.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1474px) 100vw, 1474px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This 1855 illustration of the grizzly bear, Samson, was made by artist Charles Nahl. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The bear on that flag bore little resemblance to our current flag’s bear. “[It looks like] maybe a bear or a pig or a dog, right? It’s so hard to tell,” Kim said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The independent republic didn’t last; California soon became part of the United States. The bear flag stuck around, but everybody was drawing it in a different way. Some versions had the bear standing up, on others it was perched up at the top of the flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1911, California adopted the bear flag as its state flag, and the legislature set guidelines, saying the bear must be in the middle, walking toward the left, and dark brown. In 1953, the state decided to standardize the flag further and try to make the bear look more like a bear, rather than a wolf or a pig. A zoologist was brought in to advise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076799\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1099px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12076799 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1099\" height=\"621\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-02-KQED.jpg 1099w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-02-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1099px) 100vw, 1099px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph of an illustration showing the raising of the Bear Flag over Sonoma, June 14, 1846. The California Republic flag, complete with grizzly bear, star and stripe, is being raised on the pole. In the background is the home of General Vallejo, an army barracks and a church. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here’s where the urban legend begins. Many sources report that since all the California grizzlies were dead by then, the flag’s artist used the taxidermied form of Monarch, which was even then on display at the California Academy of Sciences, as a reference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Kim doesn’t buy it. She studied the relevant historical documents, especially the correspondence between the zoologist and the flag’s artist. According to the letters, the men used as their main reference a different grizzly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the 1850s, a man named James Capen Adams, better known as Grizzly Adams, opened the Mountaineer Museum in San Francisco. It was on Clay Street, just a few blocks from where the Ferry Building is today. It had several live grizzlies chained to the floor, as well as elk, mountain lions, and a few eagles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the rear, in a very large iron cage, was a massive grizzly named Samson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A painter called Charles Nahl made illustrations for \u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/adventuresofjame00hittrich/page/n9/mode/2up\">a book\u003c/a> about Adams, and one of his paintings was of \u003ca href=\"https://bancroftlibrarycara.wordpress.com/nahl_grizzly_monterey_image_cropped/\">Samson\u003c/a>. It’s \u003cem>that\u003c/em> painting, of Samson, that was consistently used as a reference for the California state flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The California grizzly’s undeserved reputation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Not only did Monarch’s story get distorted and manipulated, but so did the story of all the California grizzlies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most wrong part of it was the idea that the extinction of grizzly bears in California was inevitable and the recovery of them is impossible,” said Peter Alagona, a professor in the environmental studies program at UC Santa Barbara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Together with a team of researchers, Alagona analyzed Monarch’s bones and fur, along with those of other grizzlies. He found startling results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076817\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076817\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260317-MONARCH-THE-BEAR-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fran Ritchie of the California Academy of Sciences works to restore Monarch’s fur. \u003ccite>(Gayle Laird/California Academy of Sciences)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It turns out, California grizzlies were mostly vegetarian and averaged around 500 pounds, much smaller than the monstrous sizes attributed to them. Perhaps most surprisingly, they are genetically indistinguishable from modern-day grizzlies in Yellowstone and Montana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re gone from California, but they’re not really extinct,” said Alagona. “They just kind of live in Montana right now. It’s the same bear. It’s just not here at the moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Alagona is working with the California Grizzly Alliance, which proposes \u003ca href=\"https://www.calgrizzly.org/\">bringing grizzlies back\u003c/a> to the state.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>He’s aware that to many people this sounds like a very bad idea. But the concept is to start with just a couple of animals, very closely monitored, in a very remote area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They do a lot of amazing things,” he said. “They turn over soil and enrich the soil. They are by far the biggest seed dispersers of any animal out there in the world on a per capita basis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alagona’s research suggests that with sufficient numbers and time, grizzlies could even change the state’s vegetation and create firebreaks. But to him, the most important benefit is less tangible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re more about imagination,” Alagona said. “They’re more about this idea that yes, we can restore things that seem unrestorable. To me, that’s what the bear does for us is it enables you to see a different kind of future by showing you a little bit more about yourself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Out of the 50 states that make up the union, California is considered pretty cool. We’ve got the good weather, the stunning coastline, those laid-back vibes. And we’ve definitely got a cool state flag. If you’ve looked at other flags, many stick to geometric designs. Wyoming does have a buffalo. Louisiana’s got a pelican. But California? Our flag has a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Bay Curious\u003c/em> listener Mark Karn was researching the flag one day,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>I like to read a lot, and whenever I read, I like to, um, go off on tangents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>He found an unexpected story behind it — one that has been repeated for many years in newspapers, videos, and websites. He read that the bear on our flag was modeled after a famous bear named Monarch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarch was one of California’s last grizzlies, captured in the mountains and then put on display in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>I kind of deep dived into Monarch the bear. I was fascinated by it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Mark has always had a passion for wild animals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>I was born in Nigeria and grew up in South Africa. I love looking at nature in its wild state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>As a teenager, he would take a book out to a remote watering hole where he’d read and wait for animals to come and drink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>And I used to see a little, uh, a duiker. A duiker is a very small antelope. I used to watch the duiker come and, and drink water at the water hole. Definitely one of my most memorable moments, and you know, my happy memories. \u003cem>(Laughs.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>So, Mark was dismayed to learn that Monarch, this big, powerful grizzly, was kept behind bars for most of his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>I kind of cringe at animals in zoos. You know, they supposedly live longer, but to me there’s a, a beauty that they lack when they’re in a cage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And while he was doing his own research, he noticed some inconsistencies in Monarch’s story that made him question if Monarch was indeed the bear on our flag. So he reached out to \u003cem>Bay Curious\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mark Karn: \u003c/strong>The bear on the California flag, is it the actual Monarch the Bear that they claim it is?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>To find out if it really was, and to sort through some of the other legends around the bear, reporter Katherine Monahan went to meet Monarch. Or rather, his taxidermied form, more than a century old, on display at the California Academy of Sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sounds of chatter and kids in an echoey space\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> It’s a weekday afternoon, and the academy is packed with kids and families, mostly checking out the aquarium or the T-rex. They don’t all head for this dimly lit corner of the California exhibit. But those who do\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor: \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Wow. That is crazy. Man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Get to see a California grizzly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 2: \u003c/strong>Did you know we had grizzly bears?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 3: \u003c/strong>We don’t have ’em anymore, do we?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Monarch is powerful-looking, with a muscular hump above his shoulders. He’s dark and shaggy and bigger than a black bear for sure, but not nearly as big as, say, a two-ton polar bear. His claws, though\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 2: \u003c/strong>They look lethal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> They’re easily as long as my fingers. There’s a cast paw print where people can put their own hand in to compare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 4: \u003c/strong>Go put your hand in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 5: \u003c/strong>Oh my goodness. That’s just the palm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Monarch is standing flat on all fours with kind of a Mona Lisa smile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Museum visitor 6: \u003c/strong>Was he old?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> He looks peaceful. But then, he is taxidermied, quite literally a puppet. And we could have made him look however we wanted. Which, in many ways, is what we did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music starts\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy:\u003c/strong> So much of what we know about grizzlies is a myth. It’s fictitious, it’s fear-based.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> That’s Devlin Gandy, tribal liaison for the California Grizzly Alliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says it’s estimated there were ten thousand grizzly bears in the state before the California Gold Rush. And, hundreds of thousands of Native Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>It’s very abundantly clear that they not only existed alongside grizzlies, but they thrived with grizzlies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> But the Spanish ranchers and then the gold miners who flooded into California in the 1800s saw the bears differently. They told sensational stories that featured the animals as brutal, bloodthirsty killers — even though grizzlies mostly minded their own business unless provoked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>You see the bear being really cast as this, um, obstacle to progress, much like the wolves and much like native people, and as something that, you know, has to be done away with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Bounties on grizzlies became common. Mostly, they were killed with poison. Ranchers put strychnine onto the carcasses of dead cows. By the late 1800s, very few grizzlies were left in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>It’s a time of extreme ecological degradation, and you start to get this romanticism for the West, this romantic notion of Native Americans and wildlife. And Monarch falls right into that narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Enter William Randolph Hearst. In 1887, after getting kicked out of Harvard for bad behavior, he landed back in his hometown of San Francisco. Where his father gave him a small newspaper called the San Francisco Examiner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>Hearst is leading this new wave of journalism that has a lot of sensationalism tied to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> He was about 25 years old. And he thought it would be great publicity if someone from the Examiner could capture a live grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he asked one of his reporters, Allen Kelly, to do it. Kelly clearly got right into character, as you can see in his portrait from the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>He has these bandoliers of ammunition on both sides of his chest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s just like he’s trying to be Rambo. You’re like, what are you doing, dude?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Kelly had never actually hunted a bear before. So when he struck out for the mountains of Southern California, where it was rumored there were still a few grizzlies left, he hired local helpers. They were happy to oblige.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>A man coming from San Francisco with a blank check from one of the richest men in California to go on a bear hunt? That sounds absolutely great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> They led this city-slicker journalist around in circles, all the while camping and eating well and seeing plenty of bear sign, but not trapping any bears. Kelly eventually caught on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>He starts to realize that all these grizzly bear tracks that he’s seeing are actually probably not being made by a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> So he fired his crew. But by then he’d been gone for five months, and he was getting desperate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>Like, I need a bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Just then, a monstrous grizzly came to his camp, conquered a cinnamon bear called Six-Toed Pete in an epic moonlit battle, and walked into his trap. At least, that’s how Kelly reported it in the Examiner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice over reads newspaper clipping: \u003c/strong>A great ripping and tearing was heard going on inside. The Monarch was caught at last. Upon the approach of men, the grizzly became furious and made the heavy logs tremble and shake in his efforts to get out and resent the indignity that had been put upon him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> But Gandy thinks there was no trap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devlin Gandy: \u003c/strong>He was actually probably captured by some of the vaqueros using lassos. And when they’re able to use four different horses to pull the bear’s arms and legs in four different directions, you have a bear that basically is stuck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> About fifteen years later, Kelly \u003ca href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15276/15276-h/15276-h.htm#chap02\">retold his story\u003c/a> in a book, this time saying that some Mexicans caught the bear, and he heard about it and went and bought it from them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless, he still had to transport it to San Francisco. Which he reports in swashbuckling, self-aggrandizing detail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice over reads newspaper clipping: \u003c/strong>The Monarch was now bound, gagged, and utterly helpless, but he never ceased roaring with rage at his captors and struggling to get just one swipe at them with his paw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Naming the bear “Monarch” was kind of an advertisement for the Examiner, which had the slogan “The Monarch of the Dailies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly describes how the grizzly broke his teeth trying to gnaw through his chains. How he tied Monarch to a kind of sled and hauled him down the mountain, and then built a cage and mounted it on a wagon and then a train for San Francisco … to a place called Woodward’s Garden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> In the late 1800’s, Woodward’s Garden was an amusement park in the Mission, near where the Armory is now. It had an aquatic carousel, balloon rides, camel rides, an eight foot three inch tall man who was billed as a giant . . . It was kind of a carnival. And a sign of its time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Academy of Sciences head librarian Rebekah Kim shows me a picture of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>They had, like, live bears jumping from like a diving board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan: \u003c/strong>Whoa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim:\u003c/strong> Oh, and then bears in captivity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The Examiner covered Monarch’s arrival at the garden with great drama: how one of the black bears died of fright when he arrived. How he tore through his cage into the hyena enclosure and rolled up sheets of iron like they were paper. How he was the only grizzly bear in captivity (which is not true. There was another one at the Oregon Zoo). How he weighed a thousand pounds (also not true).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ambi of chatter at the Academy of Sciences\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Back at Monarch’s taxidermy display, we talk about how the fabled massiveness of grizzly bears was yet another tall tale\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> I have never seen a grizzly, and I thought they’d be a lot bigger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>No, actually, technically. Monarch is a little overweight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Kim explains that despite grizzlies’ reputation for being huge and vicious\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>They were mostly vegan. And they probably weighed close to like 500 ish pounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan: \u003c/strong>Why would you bother being vegan with a body like that? Look at those claws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>I don’t know. I mean, and that’s the thing, it’s like a dispelling a myth. I think California grizzlies were hunted down because they were thought to be, um, apex predators and a threat to livestock and people, but they really weren’t going after those things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> It turns out the claws, along with the muscular hump on the shoulders, are really for digging. Grizzlies are omnivores, and eat mostly vegetarian. In captivity, however,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>Monarch’s diet consisted of biscuits, sugar, peanuts, not his natural diet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> No wonder he is portly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>He is. He was like, um, I don’t know exactly, around 900 pounds. So double the normal size of a grizzly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Monarch stayed in Woodward’s Garden for five years, in a cage so small he could barely turn around in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>And then he moved to the World’s Fair in Golden Gate Park as part of like the 49 ERs camp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Wait a second. \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/457584756/?match=1&terms=monarch%20the%20bear\">As a live bear. He was in the World Fair?\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>Yeah, he was. There’s, oh, I have a picture somewhere. He’s like in a pit. It’s actually really sad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The 1894 World’s Fair took up 200 acres in Golden Gate Park. It was built like an amusement park, with large outdoor attractions. There were Inuit people on display, real people, in a village of papier-mache igloos. There was a Japanese village, which is now the Japanese Tea Garden. And a \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/378308351/?match=1&terms=%2749%20mining%20camp\">pretend mining camp\u003c/a>, where you could go to a saloon and see a grizzly bear. Here’s, once again, the San Francisco Examiner:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice over reads newspaper clipping: \u003c/strong>Monarch, the Examiner bear, is a wild and untamed beast, and has not yet been told that one of the lion tribe is likely to invade his home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Fairgoers were clamouring for a lion to be dropped into Monarch’s concrete pit so they’d fight. But the fair managers, in a rare moment of good taste, refused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the World’s Fair, Monarch was moved to his final home — a cage in Golden Gate Park’s menagerie, where the AIDS Memorial Grove is now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>You could see a bunch of different animals. It was free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> This was the late 1800s, well before the San Francisco Zoo, and really before any real understanding of how to run a zoo. The park had bison, as it still does, but also kangaroos and elk and an aviary. And a grizzly bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>You could walk up to the enclosure, stick your arm in if you wanted to. Um, and you could throw peanuts or whatever snacks you wanted to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> And Monarch lived there for the rest of his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>There’s a lot of historic photos. You can see many times he looks pretty sad behind bars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> She shows me one of Monarch resting his head against the side of his cage, staring, it seems, into nothing. After the first decade, his keepers became concerned by his apparent depression and brought a female grizzly called Montana Babe. Over time, they had several cubs. Some of them died. And in 1911, after over two decades in captivity, Monarch died too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>At that point. He was very overweight, he was like paralyzed and not moving, and so the, I think their way of euthanasia was like a policeman coming and shooting him in the head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Monarch was one of the last of his kind. California grizzlies were classified as a distinct subspecies. And for over half a century, they had been relentlessly, systematically poisoned, hunted and trapped. By the 1920s, they were extinct … or so we believed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> When we come back, we turn to Mark’s question. \u003cem>Is Monarch\u003c/em> the bear on the California flag? Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor break\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Now we come to the question of our state flag, featuring a strong and proud-looking grizzly bear. Our question asker, Mark Karn, wanted to know if, as the legend goes, \u003cem>Monarch\u003c/em> is the bear on the flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s Katherine Monahan again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The history of the bear flag goes way back – to before California was even a state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1846, grizzly bears were all over California, which was still part of Mexico. That year, a group of about thirty American settlers rebelled against the Mexican government and took over the town of Sonoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They painted a bear and a star on a sheet, raised it above town, and proclaimed themselves an independent nation. The California Republic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Academy of Sciences head librarian Rebekah Kim shows me a picture of their flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>The first one is just like a silhouette of a. You think maybe a bear or a pig or a dog, right? It’s so hard to tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> To the rebels, the grizzly \u003ca href=\"https://bearflagmuseum.blogspot.com/2009/08/william-b-ide-on-creation-of-bear-flag.html\">symbolized\u003c/a> “strength and unyielding resistance.” Their new republic didn’t last – California soon became part of the United States. But the bear flag stuck around. Only everybody was drawing it in a different way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>There’s another variation where the bear is up on its hind legs and kind of standing up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> In 1911, California decided to make it the state flag. And the state legislature set guidelines, saying the bear must be in the middle, walking toward the left, and it must be dark brown\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>But there are no specific specifications about what it’s supposed to look like, so then, depending on the printer, you can get a different version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> So, in 1953, the legislature decided we needed to standardize the flag and try to make the bear look more reliably like a bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>And so there is a zoologist who is an expert on California grizzlies, who’s sort of informing the designer about how to change the image to make it less like either a wolf or like a pig.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The problem was, all the California grizzlies were dead by then. So what could the artist look at for a reference? The taxidermied form of Monarch could have been helpful, and there is a 1953 article in the San Francisco Chronicle that suggests it was part of the process. But Kim doesn’t buy it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>No. Looking at the historical documents of the illustrator. All the back and forth is not about Monarch. The references he uses is a different illustration and some, um, images of other grizzlies in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> So it’s. Kind of an urban legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong>It is, and it is perpetuated by lots of sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Kim herself was one of them, until she did this research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rebekah Kim: \u003c/strong> I was like, oh no, I’ve told people, like I’ve told the wrong thing to people. Cause that has been the narrative that we’ve been fed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> The real model for the California state flag, as it turns out, was Samson, another famous grizzly that spent time in San Francisco long before Monarch showed up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the 1850s, a man named James Capen Adams, better known as Grizzly Adams, opened the Mountaineer Museum in San Francisco. It was on Clay Street, just a few blocks from where the Ferry Building is today. A newspaper reporter described a dingy basement with several live grizzlies chained to the floor. There were also elk, mountain lions, and a few eagles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice over reads newspaper clipping:\u003c/strong> At the rear, in a very large iron cage, was the monster grizzly Samson. He was an immense creature weighing some three-quarters of a ton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> A painter called Charles Nahl made a detailed portrait of Samson. And \u003cem>that\u003c/em> painting of \u003cem>that\u003c/em> bear was consistently used as a reference for the California state flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>The entire story was, was wrong in a lot of ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Pete Alagona is a professor in the environmental studies program at UC Santa Barbara. He says not only did \u003cem>Monarch’s \u003c/em>story get distorted and manipulated, but so did the story of all the California grizzlies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>And the most wrong part of it was the idea that the extinction of grizzly bears in California was inevitable, and the recovery of them is impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> To get closer to the truth, Alagona analyzed Monarch’s bones and fur, along with those of other grizzlies. His team found startling results. It turns out California grizzlies are genetically indistinguishable from modern-day grizzlies in Yellowstone and Montana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>They’re gone from California, but they’re not really extinct. They just kind of live in Montana right now. It’s the same bear. It’s just not here at the moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Now, Alagona is working with the California Grizzly Alliance, which proposes \u003ca href=\"https://www.calgrizzly.org/\">bringing grizzlies back\u003c/a> to the state. The idea is to start with just a couple of animals, very closely monitored, in a very remote area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> You are aware that to a lot of people, the idea of reintroducing grizzlies sounds pretty nuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>Um, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> What’s, what’s your response to that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>So, you know, when I started this project, it sounded nuts to me too. I wasn’t interested in that. I was just interested in learning about them. And as I went further along, I realized, it’s totally possible. Which means it’s a choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> And if it’s a choice, he figures, we should make it an informed one by learning more about grizzlies. And not, this time, from what people have said about them, but by studying the animals themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>They do a lot of amazing things. They turn over soil and enrich the soil. They are by far the biggest seed dispersers of any animal out there in the world on a per capita basis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> He says the biggest benefits that grizzlies might bring back to California, though, are not really about the ecosystem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peter Alagona: \u003c/strong>They’re more about. Imagination. They’re more about this idea that yes, we can restore things that seem unrestorable. Yes, there is a possibility for things that seem impossible. To me, that’s what the bear does for us is it enables you to see a different kind of future by showing you a little bit more about yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/strong> Maybe Monarch’s story is a kind of allegory for our present moment. On one hand, we live in a time of severe environmental loss, and many of us, to some extent, feel it and can relate to the depressed, overweight captive bear. On the other hand, this is a time of incredible possibility. When enough of our natural world still lives that it may be able to make a comeback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Who knows if we’ll ever find grizzlies in California again? But for now, we have our flag — adorned with an image of the fierce, proud, mostly vegetarian bear — named Samson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was KQED’s Katherine Monahan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We are in the middle of our experiment of dropping two episodes a week, and we want to know what you think! Share your feedback with us by emailing \u003ca href=\"mailto:baycurious@kqed.org\">baycurious@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This question came from listener Mark Karn, and hey, who knows, a future episode could come from YOUR question. Our show is only possible because you keep asking them. Head to \u003ca href=\"http://baycurious.org\">BayCurious.org\u003c/a> and submit a question right at the top of the page.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Bay Curious\u003c/em> is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our show is made by Katrina Schwartz, Gabriella Glueck, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a good one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076825/unspecified-allegations-prompt-cancellation-of-cesar-chavez-celebrations\">Sexual misconduct allegations\u003c/a> against labor icon \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/cesar-chavez\">Cesar Chavez\u003c/a> this week are sending shockwaves through California, where the farmworker movement founder has been revered for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The allegations, which came to light in an investigation by \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-abuse-allegations-ufw.html\">\u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a> published Wednesday, accuse Chavez of a pattern of sexual misconduct against young girls and women who worked alongside him in the Latino civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two women, who are both now 66, told \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>Times\u003c/em> that they had been assaulted repeatedly by Chavez for years in the 1970s, when they were \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-assault-allegations-takeaways.html\">12 and 13,\u003c/a> and he was in his 40s. The investigation also detailed allegations made against Chavez by several other women, including the labor leader’s close ally and United Farm Workers co-founder \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12054312/dolores-huerta-on-the-state-of-workers-rights-in-california\">Dolores Huerta\u003c/a>, who said Chavez raped her and pressured her into intercourse on two separate occasions in the 1960s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news has already garnered wide response from labor and elected leaders across the Bay Area, where Chavez’s name is plastered on schools, streets and parks. California, where Chavez began his career as a community organizer in San José and spent years building UFW in La Paz, north of Los Angeles, was the first to recognize Cesar Chavez Day on March 31, 2000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m angry. I’m shaken. And I’m thinking about what this moment demands of us,” Rudy Gonzalez, a member of the San Francisco Labor Council’s executive committee, said in a statement on Tuesday, as whispers of the allegations began to swirl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The day before \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>Times\u003c/em>’ investigation was published, the UFW Foundation announced that it would cancel all activities planned in celebration of Cesar Chavez Day, on March 31, in light of “allegations about abusive behavior.” The Cesar Chavez Foundation also said it had become aware of “disturbing allegations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076934\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076934\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue of Cesar E. Chavez stands as members of the San Fernando Valley commemorative committee celebrate Cesar Chavez Day on March 31, 2021, in San Fernando, California. Chavez was known for employing nonviolent means to seek better working conditions for thousands of farm workers who suffered low wages and severe working conditions. In 1962, he founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. \u003ccite>(Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“As a Mexican American labor leader, I was raised on the story of the farm worker movement — on sacrifice, on faith, on the belief that working people deserve dignity,” Gonzalez said in his statement. “But let me be clear: our movement has never been about one man,” he continued. “It has always been about workers — Filipino, Mexican, Black, immigrants standing together and demanding respect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, organizations have announced that they will cancel or reevaluate events planned in honor of Chavez in San José, including a legacy dinner and programming by San José State University’s Cesar E. Chavez Community Action Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Matt Mahan said the city was cancelling all planned events associated with the state holiday and would “identify ways to honor the legacy of the farmworker movement without celebrating individuals who caused such profound harm to the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We recognize that Chavez’s ties to San José come with a responsibility to ensure we are not further traumatizing survivors,” he said in a statement.[aside postID=news_12054936 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/20250903_FARMLABORCRISIS_GC-18-KQED.jpg']Contra Costa County also said it was “reviewing the details” of its annual celebration planned for next month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Following the lead of the United Farm Workers, Contra Costa County remains focused on supporting farmworkers and advancing equity, safety, and opportunity in agriculture,” spokesperson Kristi Jourdan said via email. “Our goal is to ensure this event honors farmworkers, highlights urgent issues like fair wages and safe working conditions, and reflects our shared values of dignity and inclusion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Congressional Hispanic Caucus said it would honor farmworkers and their “arduous, essential work” on March 31, nationally recognized as Cesar Chavez Day, this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We cannot celebrate a man, regardless of his accomplishments, if he harmed women and children in such vile ways,” the caucus said in a statement. “While it’s heartbreaking when leaders are exposed as flawed beyond absolution, a just society has a duty to hold abusers accountable without exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A movement stands on its values, not the misconduct of an individual,” it continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organizers of San Francisco’s annual Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta Day Parade and Festival said the event would be renamed solely in honor of Huerta, whose birthday is April 10.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Viva La Causa! Support the [farmworker] Movement,” Eva Royale said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The investigation published Wednesday morning includes accusations from at least a dozen women who say they were either \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-assault-allegations-takeaways.html\">pursued, harassed or assaulted\u003c/a> by Chavez while he was at the height of his career, including Ana Murguia, who told \u003cem>The Times\u003c/em> that she was first summoned to Chavez’s office when she was 13 years old, living with her family at La Paz. She said over the next four years, she had dozens of sexual encounters with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076914\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076914\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20250903_FarmLaborCrisis_GC-7_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20250903_FarmLaborCrisis_GC-7_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20250903_FarmLaborCrisis_GC-7_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20250903_FarmLaborCrisis_GC-7_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A farmworker picks grapes at a field in Fresno on Sept. 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Debra Rojas told \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>Times \u003c/em>she was 12 when Chavez first touched her inappropriately, and that when she was 15, he raped her at a motel during the United Farm Workers’ 1,000 Mile March in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huerta, Chavez’s UFW co-founder and close ally in leading the Farmworkers’ Movement, said in a \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@dolores_huerta/march-18-2026-e74c20430555\">statement on Wednesday\u003c/a> that she had two nonconsensual sexual encounters with Chavez in the 1960s, both resulting in pregnancies that she hid from public view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huerta said that she had not spoken out about her experiences for the last 60 years, because she “believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am telling my story because \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> has indicated that I was not the only one — there were others,” she wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years. There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044395\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12044395\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DoloresHuertaHistoricPortraitGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1393\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DoloresHuertaHistoricPortraitGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DoloresHuertaHistoricPortraitGetty-160x111.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DoloresHuertaHistoricPortraitGetty-1536x1070.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portrait of labor activist Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers group, with a union flag that reads “Viva La Causa,” ca.1970s. \u003ccite>(Cathy Murphy/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco’s Mission District Wednesday afternoon, many were still learning of the allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richard Hingel said he remembers when nearby Cesar Chavez Street was renamed in 1995, from Army Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I always thought of him as an amazing trailblazer,” he told KQED. “I’m afraid I’m a bit jaded. I’ve heard the story so many times from charismatic leaders in power and abusing women.”[aside postID=news_12054312 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Untitled-design.jpg']“It’s sad, and I can believe it,” Sharon Garland said. “My grandfather was a farmer, and I was assaulted by him as a child … There weren’t many consequences back then and people didn’t believe women.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maria Menjibar said she remembered the good Chavez did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He is, for us, an idol, somebody who fights for all rights,” she said. “I can’t say anything against him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joshua Arce, the president of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, expressed support for Huerta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For 60 years, she carried a painful burden in silence, known only to her, so that the movement she helped build and loves deeply could continue — never knowing until now that others, too, had suffered harm,” he wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/josharcesf/posts/pfbid0CkDw4vRPd989iRGqj6KrzBjjpeoofF93PAxh7setcg8d7isyMVe4htfs8JzBzqNtl\">post on Facebook\u003c/a>. “By breaking that silence, Dolores is speaking not only for herself, but for every woman and girl who was hurt and made to suffer alone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said his first priority was to listen to survivors, adding that “the farmworker movement has never been about one man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is bigger than any one person, and its values of dignity and justice are more important now than ever,” he wrote. “To those who have found the courage to come forward, my heart is with you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12034002\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12034002\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Alex Padilla speaks at a press briefing in San Francisco on June 1, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sen. Alex Padilla, who last year proposed legislation to create a national park honoring Chavez across California and Arizona, called the revelations “heartbreaking, horrific accounts of abuse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There must be zero tolerance for abuse, exploitation, and the silencing of victims, no matter who is involved,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “Confronting painful truths and ensuring accountability is essential to honoring the very values the greater farm worker movement stands for — values rooted in dignity and justice for all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Padilla’s office said he plans to rename and rework the legislation for the national park to honor farm workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez’s children also expressed support for survivors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our family is shocked and saddened to learn of news that our father, Cesar Chavez, engaged in sexual impropriety with women and minors nearly 50 years ago,” they wrote in a statement. “As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is deeply painful to our family. We hope these matters are approached thoughtfully and fairly,” the statement reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "“Our movement has never been about one man,” said Rudy Gonzalez, a member of the San Francisco Labor Council’s executive committee. “It has always been about workers — Filipino, Mexican, Black, immigrants standing together and demanding respect.”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076825/unspecified-allegations-prompt-cancellation-of-cesar-chavez-celebrations\">Sexual misconduct allegations\u003c/a> against labor icon \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/cesar-chavez\">Cesar Chavez\u003c/a> this week are sending shockwaves through California, where the farmworker movement founder has been revered for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The allegations, which came to light in an investigation by \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-abuse-allegations-ufw.html\">\u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a> published Wednesday, accuse Chavez of a pattern of sexual misconduct against young girls and women who worked alongside him in the Latino civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two women, who are both now 66, told \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>Times\u003c/em> that they had been assaulted repeatedly by Chavez for years in the 1970s, when they were \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-assault-allegations-takeaways.html\">12 and 13,\u003c/a> and he was in his 40s. The investigation also detailed allegations made against Chavez by several other women, including the labor leader’s close ally and United Farm Workers co-founder \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12054312/dolores-huerta-on-the-state-of-workers-rights-in-california\">Dolores Huerta\u003c/a>, who said Chavez raped her and pressured her into intercourse on two separate occasions in the 1960s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news has already garnered wide response from labor and elected leaders across the Bay Area, where Chavez’s name is plastered on schools, streets and parks. California, where Chavez began his career as a community organizer in San José and spent years building UFW in La Paz, north of Los Angeles, was the first to recognize Cesar Chavez Day on March 31, 2000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m angry. I’m shaken. And I’m thinking about what this moment demands of us,” Rudy Gonzalez, a member of the San Francisco Labor Council’s executive committee, said in a statement on Tuesday, as whispers of the allegations began to swirl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The day before \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>Times\u003c/em>’ investigation was published, the UFW Foundation announced that it would cancel all activities planned in celebration of Cesar Chavez Day, on March 31, in light of “allegations about abusive behavior.” The Cesar Chavez Foundation also said it had become aware of “disturbing allegations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076934\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076934\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue of Cesar E. Chavez stands as members of the San Fernando Valley commemorative committee celebrate Cesar Chavez Day on March 31, 2021, in San Fernando, California. Chavez was known for employing nonviolent means to seek better working conditions for thousands of farm workers who suffered low wages and severe working conditions. In 1962, he founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. \u003ccite>(Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“As a Mexican American labor leader, I was raised on the story of the farm worker movement — on sacrifice, on faith, on the belief that working people deserve dignity,” Gonzalez said in his statement. “But let me be clear: our movement has never been about one man,” he continued. “It has always been about workers — Filipino, Mexican, Black, immigrants standing together and demanding respect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, organizations have announced that they will cancel or reevaluate events planned in honor of Chavez in San José, including a legacy dinner and programming by San José State University’s Cesar E. Chavez Community Action Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Matt Mahan said the city was cancelling all planned events associated with the state holiday and would “identify ways to honor the legacy of the farmworker movement without celebrating individuals who caused such profound harm to the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We recognize that Chavez’s ties to San José come with a responsibility to ensure we are not further traumatizing survivors,” he said in a statement.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Contra Costa County also said it was “reviewing the details” of its annual celebration planned for next month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Following the lead of the United Farm Workers, Contra Costa County remains focused on supporting farmworkers and advancing equity, safety, and opportunity in agriculture,” spokesperson Kristi Jourdan said via email. “Our goal is to ensure this event honors farmworkers, highlights urgent issues like fair wages and safe working conditions, and reflects our shared values of dignity and inclusion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Congressional Hispanic Caucus said it would honor farmworkers and their “arduous, essential work” on March 31, nationally recognized as Cesar Chavez Day, this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We cannot celebrate a man, regardless of his accomplishments, if he harmed women and children in such vile ways,” the caucus said in a statement. “While it’s heartbreaking when leaders are exposed as flawed beyond absolution, a just society has a duty to hold abusers accountable without exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A movement stands on its values, not the misconduct of an individual,” it continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organizers of San Francisco’s annual Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta Day Parade and Festival said the event would be renamed solely in honor of Huerta, whose birthday is April 10.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Viva La Causa! Support the [farmworker] Movement,” Eva Royale said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The investigation published Wednesday morning includes accusations from at least a dozen women who say they were either \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-assault-allegations-takeaways.html\">pursued, harassed or assaulted\u003c/a> by Chavez while he was at the height of his career, including Ana Murguia, who told \u003cem>The Times\u003c/em> that she was first summoned to Chavez’s office when she was 13 years old, living with her family at La Paz. She said over the next four years, she had dozens of sexual encounters with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076914\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076914\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20250903_FarmLaborCrisis_GC-7_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20250903_FarmLaborCrisis_GC-7_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20250903_FarmLaborCrisis_GC-7_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20250903_FarmLaborCrisis_GC-7_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A farmworker picks grapes at a field in Fresno on Sept. 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Debra Rojas told \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>Times \u003c/em>she was 12 when Chavez first touched her inappropriately, and that when she was 15, he raped her at a motel during the United Farm Workers’ 1,000 Mile March in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huerta, Chavez’s UFW co-founder and close ally in leading the Farmworkers’ Movement, said in a \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@dolores_huerta/march-18-2026-e74c20430555\">statement on Wednesday\u003c/a> that she had two nonconsensual sexual encounters with Chavez in the 1960s, both resulting in pregnancies that she hid from public view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huerta said that she had not spoken out about her experiences for the last 60 years, because she “believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am telling my story because \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> has indicated that I was not the only one — there were others,” she wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years. There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044395\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12044395\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DoloresHuertaHistoricPortraitGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1393\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DoloresHuertaHistoricPortraitGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DoloresHuertaHistoricPortraitGetty-160x111.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DoloresHuertaHistoricPortraitGetty-1536x1070.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portrait of labor activist Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers group, with a union flag that reads “Viva La Causa,” ca.1970s. \u003ccite>(Cathy Murphy/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco’s Mission District Wednesday afternoon, many were still learning of the allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richard Hingel said he remembers when nearby Cesar Chavez Street was renamed in 1995, from Army Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I always thought of him as an amazing trailblazer,” he told KQED. “I’m afraid I’m a bit jaded. I’ve heard the story so many times from charismatic leaders in power and abusing women.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It’s sad, and I can believe it,” Sharon Garland said. “My grandfather was a farmer, and I was assaulted by him as a child … There weren’t many consequences back then and people didn’t believe women.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maria Menjibar said she remembered the good Chavez did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He is, for us, an idol, somebody who fights for all rights,” she said. “I can’t say anything against him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joshua Arce, the president of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, expressed support for Huerta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For 60 years, she carried a painful burden in silence, known only to her, so that the movement she helped build and loves deeply could continue — never knowing until now that others, too, had suffered harm,” he wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/josharcesf/posts/pfbid0CkDw4vRPd989iRGqj6KrzBjjpeoofF93PAxh7setcg8d7isyMVe4htfs8JzBzqNtl\">post on Facebook\u003c/a>. “By breaking that silence, Dolores is speaking not only for herself, but for every woman and girl who was hurt and made to suffer alone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said his first priority was to listen to survivors, adding that “the farmworker movement has never been about one man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is bigger than any one person, and its values of dignity and justice are more important now than ever,” he wrote. “To those who have found the courage to come forward, my heart is with you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12034002\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12034002\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/034_SanFrancisco_AlexPadillaMissionKids_06012021_qed-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Alex Padilla speaks at a press briefing in San Francisco on June 1, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sen. Alex Padilla, who last year proposed legislation to create a national park honoring Chavez across California and Arizona, called the revelations “heartbreaking, horrific accounts of abuse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There must be zero tolerance for abuse, exploitation, and the silencing of victims, no matter who is involved,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “Confronting painful truths and ensuring accountability is essential to honoring the very values the greater farm worker movement stands for — values rooted in dignity and justice for all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Padilla’s office said he plans to rename and rework the legislation for the national park to honor farm workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez’s children also expressed support for survivors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our family is shocked and saddened to learn of news that our father, Cesar Chavez, engaged in sexual impropriety with women and minors nearly 50 years ago,” they wrote in a statement. “As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is deeply painful to our family. We hope these matters are approached thoughtfully and fairly,” the statement reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The United Farm Workers union has distanced itself from annual celebrations of its founder, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/cesar-chavez\">Cesar Chavez\u003c/a>, amid what it said were troubling allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement Tuesday, the union said allegations of “abuse of young women or minors” were concerning enough to urge people around the country to participate in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/immigration\">immigration\u003c/a> justice events or acts of service instead of the typical events in March to commemorate Chavez’s legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union said it has not received any direct reports of abuse and does not have any firsthand knowledge of the allegations. Neither the union nor the Cesar Chavez Foundation responded to requests from The Associated Press for further comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the reports are family issues, and not our story to tell or our place to comment on,” the union said in its statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several Cesar Chavez celebrations in San Francisco, Texas and Chavez’s home state of Arizona were canceled at the request of the foundation, which also said it’s become aware of disturbing allegations about Chavez during his time as president of the union. Organizers of canceled events did not immediately respond to the AP’s requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both groups said they’d be working to establish ways for anyone who might have been harmed by Chavez to share experiences confidentially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These allegations have been profoundly shocking,” the union statement said. “We need some time to get this right, including to ensure robust, trauma-informed services are available to those who may need it.”[aside postID=news_12008531 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS48095_Carrillo-2-qut.jpg']California became the first state to establish March 31, Chavez’s birthday, as a day commemorating the labor leader. Others followed. In 2014, then-President Barack Obama proclaimed March 31 as national \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13973786/cesar-chavez-day-farmworkers-california\">Cesar Chavez Day\u003c/a>, urging Americans to honor his legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Streets, schools and parks bear Chavez’s name. Born in Yuma, Arizona, Chavez grew up in a Mexican-American family that traveled around California picking lettuce, grapes, cotton and other seasonal crops. He died in California in 1993 at age 66.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez is known nationally for his early organizing in the fields, a hunger strike, a grape boycott and eventual victory in getting growers to negotiate with farmworkers for better wages and working conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1962, Chavez and Dolores Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which became the United Farm Workers of America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmworkers are crucial to agribusiness in California, which grows nearly half the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez protested against poor pay and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12008531/california-contractor-accused-of-firing-farmworkers-who-suffered-in-extreme-heat-is-fined\">often-miserable work conditions\u003c/a>. There were no toilets in the fields for workers, who weeded fields with short-handled hoes that forced them to bend over for hours at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bosses frequently ignored the health and wages of their workers, many of whom were Spanish-speakers in the country temporarily or illegally and had little political or legal clout to prevent abuses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The United Farm Workers union has distanced itself from annual celebrations of its founder, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/cesar-chavez\">Cesar Chavez\u003c/a>, amid what it said were troubling allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement Tuesday, the union said allegations of “abuse of young women or minors” were concerning enough to urge people around the country to participate in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/immigration\">immigration\u003c/a> justice events or acts of service instead of the typical events in March to commemorate Chavez’s legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union said it has not received any direct reports of abuse and does not have any firsthand knowledge of the allegations. Neither the union nor the Cesar Chavez Foundation responded to requests from The Associated Press for further comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the reports are family issues, and not our story to tell or our place to comment on,” the union said in its statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several Cesar Chavez celebrations in San Francisco, Texas and Chavez’s home state of Arizona were canceled at the request of the foundation, which also said it’s become aware of disturbing allegations about Chavez during his time as president of the union. Organizers of canceled events did not immediately respond to the AP’s requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both groups said they’d be working to establish ways for anyone who might have been harmed by Chavez to share experiences confidentially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These allegations have been profoundly shocking,” the union statement said. “We need some time to get this right, including to ensure robust, trauma-informed services are available to those who may need it.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California became the first state to establish March 31, Chavez’s birthday, as a day commemorating the labor leader. Others followed. In 2014, then-President Barack Obama proclaimed March 31 as national \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13973786/cesar-chavez-day-farmworkers-california\">Cesar Chavez Day\u003c/a>, urging Americans to honor his legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Streets, schools and parks bear Chavez’s name. Born in Yuma, Arizona, Chavez grew up in a Mexican-American family that traveled around California picking lettuce, grapes, cotton and other seasonal crops. He died in California in 1993 at age 66.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez is known nationally for his early organizing in the fields, a hunger strike, a grape boycott and eventual victory in getting growers to negotiate with farmworkers for better wages and working conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1962, Chavez and Dolores Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which became the United Farm Workers of America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmworkers are crucial to agribusiness in California, which grows nearly half the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez protested against poor pay and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12008531/california-contractor-accused-of-firing-farmworkers-who-suffered-in-extreme-heat-is-fined\">often-miserable work conditions\u003c/a>. There were no toilets in the fields for workers, who weeded fields with short-handled hoes that forced them to bend over for hours at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bosses frequently ignored the health and wages of their workers, many of whom were Spanish-speakers in the country temporarily or illegally and had little political or legal clout to prevent abuses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Whether Elon Musk will be forced to pay back \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075332/elon-musk-defends-himself-in-court-over-posts-before-twitter-takeover\">investors who sold Twitter stock\u003c/a> amid his 2022 takeover is now in the hands of a San Francisco jury, after attorneys wrapped up their closing arguments in the securities fraud case Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal class action lawsuit, brought by former shareholders in the social media company, alleges that in the months before the $44 million buyout, the billionaire made misleading statements to hurt Twitter’s stock price with intent to renegotiate a cheaper deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mr. Musk decided … that he didn’t want to pay investors what he promised to pay. The deal in his mind had gotten too expensive,” said Mark Molumphy, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “So, he did here what he did on the stand: he trashed the company, he trashed the executives and he tanked the stock.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The weekslong civil trial has focused primarily on statements Musk made in May 2022, speculating that the number of bots on Twitter was much higher than the company publicly reported, and suggesting that the deal could be put on pause as a result.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The previous month, he’d signed a binding agreement to purchase the company at $54.20 a share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During his testimony earlier this month, Musk said that in a May meeting with then-CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal, he asked the executives how the company determined the number of spam accounts that use the site daily, and said he was “flabbergasted” when they did not know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075459\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12075459 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A courtroom sketch depicts Elon Musk (left) with his defense team on Mar. 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Vicki Behringer for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Days later, Musk tweeted that the deal was “temporarily on hold,” pending evidence of how the company calculated that percentage. Hours later, he posted that he was “still committed to the acquisition,” but the following Monday, he tweeted again, suggesting that up to 20% of Twitter users could be bots. In the time between those posts, the company’s stock dropped nearly 18%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molumphy said in total, Twitter stock dropped $8 million amid Musk’s public waffling, and many people sold their shares at deflated prices, believing the deal might fall through.[aside postID=forum_2010101912956 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2025/04/GettyImages-2203694533-1-1020x574.jpg']“There can be no dispute that Mr. Musk’s tweets caused this loss, caused this drop,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk’s defense argued his tweets were just him speaking his mind, and not intended to manipulate the market. Defense Attorney Michael Lifrak said Tuesday that Musk’s concerns about spam on the site were real, and said that when he asked for information about how Twitter calculated its bot numbers at the May executive meeting, the company “clammed up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk never asked directly for a discount on the purchase, Lifrak added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The deal closed at the original price point in October 2022, after \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1111032233/elon-musk-twitter-lawsuit-deal\">Twitter sued Musk\u003c/a> over his alleged plan to back out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lifrak urged the jury to consider the facts of the case, regardless of their feelings toward Musk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is about what happened in 2022, whether Mr. Musk engaged in the scheme to defraud, whether he purposely was tanking Twitter’s stock price, whether he lied,” Lifrak said. “He didn’t. They didn’t prove it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If he’s found guilty, Musk could be forced to repay more than $2 billion in damages to investors, according to Molumphy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The weekslong civil trial has focused primarily on statements Musk made in May 2022, speculating that the number of bots on Twitter was much higher than the company publicly reported, and suggesting that the deal could be put on pause as a result.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The previous month, he’d signed a binding agreement to purchase the company at $54.20 a share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During his testimony earlier this month, Musk said that in a May meeting with then-CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal, he asked the executives how the company determined the number of spam accounts that use the site daily, and said he was “flabbergasted” when they did not know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075459\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12075459 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-Elon-Musk-Trial-04-KQED-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A courtroom sketch depicts Elon Musk (left) with his defense team on Mar. 4, 2026. \u003ccite>(Vicki Behringer for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Days later, Musk tweeted that the deal was “temporarily on hold,” pending evidence of how the company calculated that percentage. Hours later, he posted that he was “still committed to the acquisition,” but the following Monday, he tweeted again, suggesting that up to 20% of Twitter users could be bots. In the time between those posts, the company’s stock dropped nearly 18%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molumphy said in total, Twitter stock dropped $8 million amid Musk’s public waffling, and many people sold their shares at deflated prices, believing the deal might fall through.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>As more than half of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>’s public school students continue to fall short of grade-level standards in both math and English language arts, local legislators and education officials are proposing new legislation aimed at closing what they say is a state “accountability gap” contributing to lagging achievement outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California School Board Association, which plans to campaign in Sacramento on Tuesday for a four-bill package, said the state currently lacks a coherent plan to increase student success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While school districts and county offices of education are held solely responsible for closing achievement gaps, the state controls major policy and funding decisions, and its systems remain fragmented and inconsistent,” CSBA said in a statement. “Local leaders are expected to deliver positive student outcomes, but the state is not held accountable for whether its own policies, budgets and agencies are aligned to or effective in supporting local success.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fewer than 40% of California’s public school students are proficient in math, and less than half meet English language arts standards, according to state data, which compiles annual test scores from students in grades three through eight, as well as juniors in high school. Among low-income students, foster youth and Black and Latino students, proficiency drops as low as 20%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Troy Flint, a spokesperson for CSBA, said that to close those gaps, there needs to be greater state coordination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I asked you today, what is the state plan for closing achievement gaps, you would be hard pressed to find that,” he told KQED. “The state of California has many programs and initiatives which are designed to address student achievement in some way, but they don’t have a cohesive, aligned plan that coordinates budgets, programs, implementation and support so that all agencies are rowing in the same direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076152\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076152\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260106-PREVENTINGPRESCHOOLFADEOUT-13-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260106-PREVENTINGPRESCHOOLFADEOUT-13-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260106-PREVENTINGPRESCHOOLFADEOUT-13-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260106-PREVENTINGPRESCHOOLFADEOUT-13-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students run during gym class at Yokayo Elementary School in Ukiah on Jan. 6, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While California has comprehensive reports of individual schools and school districts’ performance, Flint said there isn’t similar oversight of the state’s efforts to improve student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bills would create a number of accountability measures, including an annual dashboard recording the progress of state efforts aimed at closing achievement gaps and a commission that identifies and assesses where school districts and other local educational agencies are seeing gaps in state support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They would also require the State Board of Education and Department of Education to commission a plan of goals and benchmarks for the state to support local districts, and make changes to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sp/cl/\">system\u003c/a> used to track attendance and other student data quarterly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has invested billions in education, yet families still see achievement gaps that have not meaningfully improved in decades. We have a lot of programs, but not always a clear way to see whether the state’s investments are truly helping students,” said Stockton-area Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, who authored the \u003ca href=\"https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2514/id/3381923\">bill\u003c/a> to create the achievement gap dashboard.[aside postID=news_12076468 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260106-PREVENTINGPRESCHOOLFADEOUT-14-BL-KQED.jpg']In a statement, she said AB 2514 would bring about “transparency and alignment, so the state is working alongside our school districts, not simply asking them to solve this challenge on their own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered schools and disrupted learning, \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2019&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">just over half\u003c/a> of students were considered proficient or exceeding progress standards in English language arts based on annual state testing, while about 39.7% of students met or exceeded progress standards in math. Those numbers dropped after school closures and distance learning, to about \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2022&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">47% and 33.4%\u003c/a> during the 2021-22 school year, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last few years, student test rates have started to rebound slightly, but still lag behind pre-pandemic levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts are also concerned about long-term, and in some cases, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/recent-test-results-show-widening-gap-between-high-and-low-scoring-k-12-students/\">widening gaps\u003c/a> between the state’s highest and lowest performing students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>English language arts proficiency among Black students was \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=5&lstSubGroup=74&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">32.75%\u003c/a> last year, compared to \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">48.82% \u003c/a>overall. In Math, scores lagged about 17.24 percentage points behind overall scores, with 20.06% of students at or exceeding grade level standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among Latino students, English and math figures were \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=5&lstSubGroup=78&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">38.8% and 25.74%\u003c/a>, respectively, while Asian students, who performed the highest, recorded \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=5&lstSubGroup=76&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">74.36% and 70%\u003c/a> proficiency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067251\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067251\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/250818-SFUSDFirstDay-24_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/250818-SFUSDFirstDay-24_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/250818-SFUSDFirstDay-24_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/250818-SFUSDFirstDay-24_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students at Sanchez Elementary School in San Francisco arrive for their first day of the school year on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Socioeconomically disadvantaged students also had about \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=3&lstSubGroup=31&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">10% lower proficiency rates \u003c/a>in both subjects. Foster youth had a \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=17&lstSubGroup=240&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">larger gap\u003c/a>: just 22.46% were at or above grade level in English language arts, while 13.17% met or exceeded math standards. Slightly more than \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=4&lstSubGroup=160&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">10%\u003c/a> of English language learning students met or exceeded English and math expectations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flint said more affluent urban and suburban school districts also see higher achievement levels than rural areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The campaign to improve state oversight, Flint said, is about lifting overall student performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only way you’re going to do that really anywhere, but especially in a state with California’s demographics, is by targeting the achievement gap,” Flint told KQED. “We’re taking a broad perspective on this about how we can provide universally high education that reaches across all barriers and boundaries to support students … It’s about every student group that we can identify that’s struggling and uplifting them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As more than half of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>’s public school students continue to fall short of grade-level standards in both math and English language arts, local legislators and education officials are proposing new legislation aimed at closing what they say is a state “accountability gap” contributing to lagging achievement outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California School Board Association, which plans to campaign in Sacramento on Tuesday for a four-bill package, said the state currently lacks a coherent plan to increase student success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While school districts and county offices of education are held solely responsible for closing achievement gaps, the state controls major policy and funding decisions, and its systems remain fragmented and inconsistent,” CSBA said in a statement. “Local leaders are expected to deliver positive student outcomes, but the state is not held accountable for whether its own policies, budgets and agencies are aligned to or effective in supporting local success.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fewer than 40% of California’s public school students are proficient in math, and less than half meet English language arts standards, according to state data, which compiles annual test scores from students in grades three through eight, as well as juniors in high school. Among low-income students, foster youth and Black and Latino students, proficiency drops as low as 20%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Troy Flint, a spokesperson for CSBA, said that to close those gaps, there needs to be greater state coordination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I asked you today, what is the state plan for closing achievement gaps, you would be hard pressed to find that,” he told KQED. “The state of California has many programs and initiatives which are designed to address student achievement in some way, but they don’t have a cohesive, aligned plan that coordinates budgets, programs, implementation and support so that all agencies are rowing in the same direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076152\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076152\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260106-PREVENTINGPRESCHOOLFADEOUT-13-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260106-PREVENTINGPRESCHOOLFADEOUT-13-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260106-PREVENTINGPRESCHOOLFADEOUT-13-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260106-PREVENTINGPRESCHOOLFADEOUT-13-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students run during gym class at Yokayo Elementary School in Ukiah on Jan. 6, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While California has comprehensive reports of individual schools and school districts’ performance, Flint said there isn’t similar oversight of the state’s efforts to improve student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bills would create a number of accountability measures, including an annual dashboard recording the progress of state efforts aimed at closing achievement gaps and a commission that identifies and assesses where school districts and other local educational agencies are seeing gaps in state support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They would also require the State Board of Education and Department of Education to commission a plan of goals and benchmarks for the state to support local districts, and make changes to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sp/cl/\">system\u003c/a> used to track attendance and other student data quarterly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has invested billions in education, yet families still see achievement gaps that have not meaningfully improved in decades. We have a lot of programs, but not always a clear way to see whether the state’s investments are truly helping students,” said Stockton-area Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, who authored the \u003ca href=\"https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2514/id/3381923\">bill\u003c/a> to create the achievement gap dashboard.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In a statement, she said AB 2514 would bring about “transparency and alignment, so the state is working alongside our school districts, not simply asking them to solve this challenge on their own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered schools and disrupted learning, \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2019&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">just over half\u003c/a> of students were considered proficient or exceeding progress standards in English language arts based on annual state testing, while about 39.7% of students met or exceeded progress standards in math. Those numbers dropped after school closures and distance learning, to about \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2022&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">47% and 33.4%\u003c/a> during the 2021-22 school year, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last few years, student test rates have started to rebound slightly, but still lag behind pre-pandemic levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts are also concerned about long-term, and in some cases, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/recent-test-results-show-widening-gap-between-high-and-low-scoring-k-12-students/\">widening gaps\u003c/a> between the state’s highest and lowest performing students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>English language arts proficiency among Black students was \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=5&lstSubGroup=74&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">32.75%\u003c/a> last year, compared to \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">48.82% \u003c/a>overall. In Math, scores lagged about 17.24 percentage points behind overall scores, with 20.06% of students at or exceeding grade level standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among Latino students, English and math figures were \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=5&lstSubGroup=78&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">38.8% and 25.74%\u003c/a>, respectively, while Asian students, who performed the highest, recorded \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=5&lstSubGroup=76&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">74.36% and 70%\u003c/a> proficiency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067251\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067251\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/250818-SFUSDFirstDay-24_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/250818-SFUSDFirstDay-24_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/250818-SFUSDFirstDay-24_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/250818-SFUSDFirstDay-24_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students at Sanchez Elementary School in San Francisco arrive for their first day of the school year on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Socioeconomically disadvantaged students also had about \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=3&lstSubGroup=31&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">10% lower proficiency rates \u003c/a>in both subjects. Foster youth had a \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=17&lstSubGroup=240&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">larger gap\u003c/a>: just 22.46% were at or above grade level in English language arts, while 13.17% met or exceeded math standards. Slightly more than \u003ca href=\"https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2025&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=4&lstSubGroup=160&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000&lstFocus=a\">10%\u003c/a> of English language learning students met or exceeded English and math expectations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flint said more affluent urban and suburban school districts also see higher achievement levels than rural areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The campaign to improve state oversight, Flint said, is about lifting overall student performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only way you’re going to do that really anywhere, but especially in a state with California’s demographics, is by targeting the achievement gap,” Flint told KQED. “We’re taking a broad perspective on this about how we can provide universally high education that reaches across all barriers and boundaries to support students … It’s about every student group that we can identify that’s struggling and uplifting them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "new-bill-aims-to-ensure-legal-help-for-immigrants-facing-deportation",
"title": "New Bill Aims to Ensure Legal Help for Immigrants Facing Deportation",
"publishDate": 1773767338,
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"headTitle": "New Bill Aims to Ensure Legal Help for Immigrants Facing Deportation | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>A group of Democratic lawmakers, led by East Bay Assemblymember Mia Bonta, is rolling out a bill on Tuesday that they hope will pave the way to ensuring legal representation for every California resident \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075670/california-officials-demand-ice-return-family-to-us-after-arrest-and-deportation\">facing deportation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, the measure would make California the second state to commit to providing counsel (subject to funding) for everyone in immigration proceedings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move comes in response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, which led to a \u003ca href=\"https://deportationdata.org/analysis/immigration-enforcement-first-nine-months-trump.html\">quadrupling\u003c/a> of immigration arrests nationally in the first nine months of last year. In Northern California, arrests more than doubled, even though a planned surge of federal immigration agents \u003ca href=\"http://federal\">was averted\u003c/a> at the last minute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are literally being scooped up without due process rights, being separated from their families,” Bonta said. “And we have a record number of people in detention centers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California already has relatively robust legal aid for immigrants, channeling tens of millions of dollars in public funds to legal service providers, including a one-time $25 million approved by the legislature last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That has meant that \u003ca href=\"https://tracreports.org/phptools/immigration/addressrep/\">70% of Californians\u003c/a> with pending immigration cases had an attorney as of the end of December, the highest rate of any state except Hawaii (which had 84% representation but just 1,435 cases total). Even so, more than 100,000 California immigrants fighting deportation did not have a lawyer’s help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070623\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070623\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/AP26020826398216-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/AP26020826398216-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/AP26020826398216-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/AP26020826398216-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A guard walks to the entrance of an immigration detention center during a visit by California Democrats Sen. Adam Schiff and Sen. Alex Padilla, on Jan. 20, 2026, in California City, California. \u003ccite>(Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bonta’s bill, AB 2600, aims to close that gap. It does not obligate a specific dollar amount to immigrant legal aid, but creates a framework to channel funds when the money is there. It builds off a state law passed last year that provides a right to counsel for children in immigration proceedings, expanding that to people of all ages, with priority for those in immigration detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed language reads: “Subject to the availability of state funding, the state shall provide legal counsel to every covered individual that is not otherwise being provided counsel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That pledge to provide counsel should be a prod to put the necessary funding in the budget — not only for California lawmakers, but also for other states, said Liz Kenney, associate director at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York, who advocates for universal representation around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Given California’s leadership on funding and supporting legal representation for immigrants, it’s an incredibly significant next step,” she said. “States across the country have always looked to California for leadership on this issue, so passing a right to counsel in California would significantly impact what other states are interested in exploring.”[aside postID=news_12076370 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/HaywardFamilyDeportation1.jpg']For a decade, New York City has invested in \u003ca href=\"https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/economic-benefits-of-immigration-legal-services/\">universal representation\u003c/a> for residents in immigration detention. And several California counties are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/justice/2026/02/city-immigrant-legal-defense/\">putting extra resources\u003c/a> into deportation defense. Lawmakers in both New York state and Congress have tried to pass such laws, but so far without success. In 2022, Illinois passed a law establishing a right to legal representation in immigration proceedings, but it has not yet been implemented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Constitution guarantees legal counsel for every person facing criminal charges, at government expense if necessary. However, for people fighting deportation in immigration court, federal law provides a \u003ca href=\"https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1362&num=0&edition=prelim\">right to counsel\u003c/a>, but only if they can supply their own attorney. In practice, that means more than half — 57% at the end of 2025 — did not have a lawyer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University shows that in nearly 1 million \u003ca href=\"https://tracreports.org/phptools/immigration/asylum/\">asylum cases\u003c/a> decided in the first quarter of this century, immigrants with an attorney won asylum nearly 45% of the time, while those who were unrepresented won less than 15% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And immigration enforcement affects not only undocumented immigrants in California, said Bruno Huizar, supervising policy manager with the California Immigrant Policy Center. It has become a broad public safety concern, as legal immigrants and U.S. citizens have been arrested and even shot by immigration agents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Legal representation is a lifeline,” Huizar said. “We have seen people based on the color of their skin, the language they speak … federal agents are taking them, no matter their immigration status. So this is an incredibly urgent political issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Huizar, who advised Bonta’s office on the bill, acknowledged that new financial obligations are a heavy lift at a time when California policymakers are contending with a budget shortfall of between $3 billion and $18 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12060144\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12060144 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/FamilySeparationGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1403\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/FamilySeparationGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/FamilySeparationGetty2-160x112.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/FamilySeparationGetty2-1536x1078.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Protesters stand outside the James A. Musick Facility, a detention center that houses unauthorized immigrants, to protest President Trump’s immigration policies and demand that children be reunited with their families in Irvine on June 30, 2018. \u003ccite>(Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Given the budget deficit, [this bill] does not mandate funding,” he said. “Our hope is that we can pass this right here in the state of California, and year after year, build the political support we need to continue scaling up investments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some state budget observers say California can’t afford to add additional spending obligations, at least without finding cuts in other areas. Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow with the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank, said lawmakers should look at the state budget holistically, rather than pushing individual items in isolation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“\u003c/em>Where my concern comes is not on this project per se, which in my own personal values I probably would prioritize highly,” he said. “But is this going to become another justification to further increase the tax burden here in the state, which is already excessive compared to the rest of the country, and which I think is already having a lot of deleterious impacts on our growth and our prosperity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Bonta said expanding legal defense is not only the humane thing to do, but it’s also a way to ensure prosperity in a state where a third of the workforce is foreign-born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our immigrant community is the economic lifeblood of not only the state of California, but the country,” she said. \u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>So it’s incredibly important that we preserve that economic engine.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "New Bill Aims to Ensure Legal Help for Immigrants Facing Deportation | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A group of Democratic lawmakers, led by East Bay Assemblymember Mia Bonta, is rolling out a bill on Tuesday that they hope will pave the way to ensuring legal representation for every California resident \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075670/california-officials-demand-ice-return-family-to-us-after-arrest-and-deportation\">facing deportation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, the measure would make California the second state to commit to providing counsel (subject to funding) for everyone in immigration proceedings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move comes in response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, which led to a \u003ca href=\"https://deportationdata.org/analysis/immigration-enforcement-first-nine-months-trump.html\">quadrupling\u003c/a> of immigration arrests nationally in the first nine months of last year. In Northern California, arrests more than doubled, even though a planned surge of federal immigration agents \u003ca href=\"http://federal\">was averted\u003c/a> at the last minute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are literally being scooped up without due process rights, being separated from their families,” Bonta said. “And we have a record number of people in detention centers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California already has relatively robust legal aid for immigrants, channeling tens of millions of dollars in public funds to legal service providers, including a one-time $25 million approved by the legislature last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That has meant that \u003ca href=\"https://tracreports.org/phptools/immigration/addressrep/\">70% of Californians\u003c/a> with pending immigration cases had an attorney as of the end of December, the highest rate of any state except Hawaii (which had 84% representation but just 1,435 cases total). Even so, more than 100,000 California immigrants fighting deportation did not have a lawyer’s help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070623\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070623\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/AP26020826398216-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/AP26020826398216-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/AP26020826398216-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/AP26020826398216-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A guard walks to the entrance of an immigration detention center during a visit by California Democrats Sen. Adam Schiff and Sen. Alex Padilla, on Jan. 20, 2026, in California City, California. \u003ccite>(Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bonta’s bill, AB 2600, aims to close that gap. It does not obligate a specific dollar amount to immigrant legal aid, but creates a framework to channel funds when the money is there. It builds off a state law passed last year that provides a right to counsel for children in immigration proceedings, expanding that to people of all ages, with priority for those in immigration detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed language reads: “Subject to the availability of state funding, the state shall provide legal counsel to every covered individual that is not otherwise being provided counsel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That pledge to provide counsel should be a prod to put the necessary funding in the budget — not only for California lawmakers, but also for other states, said Liz Kenney, associate director at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York, who advocates for universal representation around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Given California’s leadership on funding and supporting legal representation for immigrants, it’s an incredibly significant next step,” she said. “States across the country have always looked to California for leadership on this issue, so passing a right to counsel in California would significantly impact what other states are interested in exploring.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For a decade, New York City has invested in \u003ca href=\"https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/economic-benefits-of-immigration-legal-services/\">universal representation\u003c/a> for residents in immigration detention. And several California counties are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/justice/2026/02/city-immigrant-legal-defense/\">putting extra resources\u003c/a> into deportation defense. Lawmakers in both New York state and Congress have tried to pass such laws, but so far without success. In 2022, Illinois passed a law establishing a right to legal representation in immigration proceedings, but it has not yet been implemented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Constitution guarantees legal counsel for every person facing criminal charges, at government expense if necessary. However, for people fighting deportation in immigration court, federal law provides a \u003ca href=\"https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1362&num=0&edition=prelim\">right to counsel\u003c/a>, but only if they can supply their own attorney. In practice, that means more than half — 57% at the end of 2025 — did not have a lawyer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University shows that in nearly 1 million \u003ca href=\"https://tracreports.org/phptools/immigration/asylum/\">asylum cases\u003c/a> decided in the first quarter of this century, immigrants with an attorney won asylum nearly 45% of the time, while those who were unrepresented won less than 15% of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And immigration enforcement affects not only undocumented immigrants in California, said Bruno Huizar, supervising policy manager with the California Immigrant Policy Center. It has become a broad public safety concern, as legal immigrants and U.S. citizens have been arrested and even shot by immigration agents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Legal representation is a lifeline,” Huizar said. “We have seen people based on the color of their skin, the language they speak … federal agents are taking them, no matter their immigration status. So this is an incredibly urgent political issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Huizar, who advised Bonta’s office on the bill, acknowledged that new financial obligations are a heavy lift at a time when California policymakers are contending with a budget shortfall of between $3 billion and $18 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12060144\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12060144 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/FamilySeparationGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1403\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/FamilySeparationGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/FamilySeparationGetty2-160x112.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/FamilySeparationGetty2-1536x1078.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Protesters stand outside the James A. Musick Facility, a detention center that houses unauthorized immigrants, to protest President Trump’s immigration policies and demand that children be reunited with their families in Irvine on June 30, 2018. \u003ccite>(Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Given the budget deficit, [this bill] does not mandate funding,” he said. “Our hope is that we can pass this right here in the state of California, and year after year, build the political support we need to continue scaling up investments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some state budget observers say California can’t afford to add additional spending obligations, at least without finding cuts in other areas. Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow with the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank, said lawmakers should look at the state budget holistically, rather than pushing individual items in isolation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“\u003c/em>Where my concern comes is not on this project per se, which in my own personal values I probably would prioritize highly,” he said. “But is this going to become another justification to further increase the tax burden here in the state, which is already excessive compared to the rest of the country, and which I think is already having a lot of deleterious impacts on our growth and our prosperity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Bonta said expanding legal defense is not only the humane thing to do, but it’s also a way to ensure prosperity in a state where a third of the workforce is foreign-born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our immigrant community is the economic lifeblood of not only the state of California, but the country,” she said. \u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>So it’s incredibly important that we preserve that economic engine.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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},
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"order": 8
},
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},
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"order": 10
},
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
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},
"closealltabs": {
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
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"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
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"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
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"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"order": 15
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
},
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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