Inside the San Francisco Church Where John Coltrane is a Saint

If Coltrane were still alive, he’d be celebrating his 100th birthday this month. In a story from our friends at KQED's Bay Curious podcast, Asal Ehsanipour visits the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco, where Reverend Franzo King and Mother Marina have spent 60 years turning the jazz legend's music into a spiritual practice. What began as a living room listening clinic in the 1960s grew into a congregation that has weathered evictions and a copyright lawsuit. Still, they persist in the belief that Coltrane's saxophone carries a divine message.

Old Timers and Newbies Look to Cash in by Panning in Gold Country

With gold prices hovering near record highs, a new wave of prospectors is showing up along California's Yuba and American rivers, joining old-timers who've been panning for generations. KQED's Katherine Monahan talks to sixth-generation miners, gold-shop owners and newcomers about whether the modern gold rush is worth the effort or mostly hype.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re reprising a story from 2020 that has a lot in common with a case in Massachusetts that has recently made national headlines: the closely-watched murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, who is accused of murdering her three children. Clancy’s trial has reignited a debate about how the legal system treats cases of women who kill their own children. More than a decade ago in Los Angeles, Carol Coronado killed her three daughters, all under age 3. The two tragedies are very similar: psychiatric experts argued that both Clancy and Coronado were suffering from postpartum psychosis. And lawyers for both women pursued an insanity defense. These are topics KQED health reporter April Dembosky has spent years investigating, and she discovered that over the last three decades, it’s actually gotten harder to win an insanity defense based on postpartum psychosis.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who's on Route 66 these days? Les Français

Route 66 is turning 100 this year, and communities around the state are gearing up for this milestone birthday. The 2,400-mile highway system stretches from Chicago to Santa Monica, and has always drawn tourists. But as KCRW’s Jennifer Swann reports, the promise of Route 66 is not exactly what it used to be. 

Meet the Bald Eagles Who Inspired a Movement

A pair of majestic bald eagles named Jackie and Shadow became internet sensations after a devoted admirer set up a camera and began livestreaming their nest. Their rise to stardom sparked a movement to protect their fragile habitat above Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains. But the story took a sad turn earlier this month when one of the eagles died. Host Sasha Khokha checked in with KVCR's Madison Aument about what’s next for the remaining eagle and its fans.

How One Professor is Teaching About Cesar Chavez Now

Last spring, when sexual abuse allegations first surfaced about labor leader Cesar Chavez, communities across the state took immediate action – from taking down statues to renaming buildings and painting over murals. But educators had to rethink how they taught students about the farmworker movement. Oliver Rosales teaches history and ethnic studies at Bakersfield College in Delano, where the United Farmer Workers were based. He spoke with host Sasha Khokha about how his curriculum has changed this fall. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Detained at Green Card Interview: How a Bay Area Family Is Healing From Sudden Separation

Since the Trump Administration’s deportation campaign began last year, more than 100,000 children who are American citizens have had a parent detained, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution. Peter, who is married to an American citizen, was the main caregiver to his son when he was taken into custody at his green card interview in November 2025. As KQED early education reporter Daisy Nguyen reports, the sudden separation took a toll not only on him and his wife, but also on their developing baby. 

At This Los Angeles Rehab, Moms in Recovery Live With Their Children

Mothers who struggle with addiction and substance abuse are often reluctant to get treatment because going through a rehabilitation program could mean leaving their kids behind at home. Residential rehabs that let mothers bring their kids are extremely rare. But there is one program in Southern California that’s one of the very few across the country, where moms and kids under six years old can stay together. Reporter Clare Wiley takes us inside. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mendocino’s Tribes, Farmers, Environmentalists Agree: Take Down Eel River’s Dams

For over a century, dams have blocked the Eel River’s natural flow of water in Northern California. Now, tribes, environmentalists and utility companies have come up with a plan to tear down the dams, as part of the “Two Basin Solution.” Reporter Sam Anderson found out what a free-running Eel River would mean for local Round Valley Indian Tribes, industry and wildlife. 

In Altadena, A Youth Music Scene Crops Up from Eaton Fire’s Ashes

After the 2025 Eaton Fire destroyed thousands of homes in Los Angeles, music lovers organized fundraisers to reconnect artists with instruments lost in the fire. Now live music shows in Altadena’s vacant lots and backyards have sprouted a new scene, where teenage punk and indie bands draw audiences from across Southern California. Reporter Steven Cuevas has the story.

Looking for a Last-Minute Summer Road Trip? Try Pinnacles National Park

Pinnacles National Park doesn’t have the name recognition as Yosemite or Joshua Tree, but it stokes just as much wonder. For our Hidden Gems series, KQED outdoors reporter Sarah Wright traveled to this small park just an hour east of Monterey to find out why it's worth a summer getaway.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean to live, work, and make decisions in a rapidly automated world?

Life, Automated explores this urgent question. It's a new podcast distributed by KQED and made by our partners at the Ryan Institute for Complexity at Northwestern University, Episodes drop every other Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco Airport’s Fear of Flying Clinic Welcomes Nervous Passengers Aboard

If your stomach drops at the thought of getting on an airplane, you’re not alone. Millions of Americans share a fear of flying. Some psychologists say the way through it is to rewire the brain, by gradually facing the very thing that feels dangerous. But you can’t just hop on a plane whenever you want to practice. That’s where a Bay Area program hosted at San Francisco International Airport can help. For nearly 50 years, they’ve been helping uneasy travelers get back in the air. Reporter Evan Roberts brings us the story from five miles up.

⁠San José’s Batman, Fighting for the Unhoused, Is the Real Life Superhero ‘We Need’⁠

If you happen to be in downtown San José at night, you might spot a man in a mask, wearing a black and purple cape and toting a cart full of supplies.. This is the Batman of San José — a volunteer who has spent nearly eight years walking the city at night to help unhoused residents. He’s a far cry from the vigilantes of comic books. He isn’t swooping from rooftops, seeking revenge or delivering justice through fists. His superpower is noticing people who feel ignored, and offering them food, first aid supplies, and sometimes, being someone they can confide in. KQED’s Srishti Prabha brings us his story.

This episode orginally aired on January 16, 2026

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Outside Sacramento, California's Largest Urban Bat Colony Takes Flight

Thousands of drivers cross a bridge to Sacramento every day, with no idea what lurks beneath them: a quarter-million Mexican free-tailed bats. Each summer at sunset, they burst out in swirling formation, drawing crowds to guided tours. As part of KQED's Hidden Gems series, reporter Srishti Prabha visits the Yolo Causeway to find out what makes these misunderstood creatures worth a closer look.

From Mono Lake to the Coast: Why These Seagulls Stay in the Bay

Whether they're stealing hamburgers or swiping ice cream cones, seagulls have earned a bad reputation. In the San Francisco Bay Area, their presence appears to be growing, as California Gulls have become year-round residents. For the Bay Curious podcast, KQED’s Pauline Bartolone found out why tens of thousands of birds ditched breeding grounds in the Eastern Sierra and have permanently relocated to the Bay.

Welcome to Nancy's Airport Cafe, Where Regulars Fly in for Pie

Along Highway 5 in Glenn County, Nancy's Airport Cafe has spent decades serving pie and hospitality to rice farmers, truckers, and pilots who fly in just for the food. As part of the California Foodways series, reporter Lisa Morehouse visited the restaurant in 2017, when walls were covered in photos of regulars, and waitresses always remembered their orders.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we're featuring two of our favorite stories from the past year.

Meet the Duduk Whisperer: A Bay Area Armenian Folk Musician Revives Centuries of Soul

San Francisco Bay Area-based Khatchadour Khatchadourian is pushing the boundaries of traditional Armenian music. The vocalist and musician plays the duduk, an ancient double reed wind instrument carved from apricot wood, which has cultural ties to the country. Last October, KQED’s Elize Manoukian brought us this profile about how Khatchadourian is preserving culture through sound.

Small Ring, Big Dreams: The Central Valley’s Backyard Wrestling Underdogs

If you turn off Highway 99 just north of Stockton, you’ll find the 209 Dragon’s Den. The venue is wedged between a private home, a plant nursery and a barn, offering one of the humbler places to tangle in the independent wrestling scene. Since it launched about a year ago, it’s been drawing wrestlers from around the state. But the 209 Dragon’s Den isn’t just a place to bring the community together– it also helps wrestlers better understand themselves and their sport. In March, reporter Hannah Weaver took us ringside.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vinyl Album Found in San Francisco Contains Echoes of a Filipino American Love Story

Jess Garcia loves perusing San Francisco thrift stores for treasures. One day, she came across a vinyl record titled "In Baghdad By the Bay: Cora and Santos Beloy," which piqued her curiosity. She rushed home to listen and was amazed at the sweet nostalgic quality of the voices she heard. When she looked for more information on the couple she couldn't find much, but had this feeling there must be more to their story. It turns out this Filipino American couple were "San Francisco famous" in the 1970s, playing a celebrated set in the Fairmount Hotel's Tonga Room among many other gigs. In this story from KQED’s Bay Curious podcast, reporter Asal Ehsanipour found out they were also larger than life figures in their local community.

Hmong Cooking Class Gives Central Valley Youth a ‘Taste of Tradition’ 

Fresno is home to the second largest Hmong community in the United States, with over 80,000 residents in the Central Valley. In 1992, Kristy Xiong immigrated here from Thailand as a child and says she held on to her culture through traditional foods. Today she's teaching a monthly class that is helping young Hmong students cook these dishes to reconnect to their heritage. From the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative and KVPR, Esther Quintanilla takes us into the kitchen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on The California Report Magazine:

What Skid Row Taught Acclaimed Violinist Vijay Gupta About Music

When violinist Vijay Gupta joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic at just 19 years old, he was the youngest to ever take a chair in a major orchestra in the U.S. But despite that shining achievement, he was desperately unhappy. Now in his late 30s, Gupta has a new memoir out called Restrung. It explores how, after years of struggling to live up to other people’s expectations, he found his true voice working with homeless people on the streets of Skid Row. Reporter Steven Cuevas has this profile.  

⁠Life Lessons from a Game of Chess⁠

Visits with loved ones are a special time for people who are incarcerated in California. Families come from all over the state to see their loved ones for a short while, and it's one of the only opportunities incarcerated parents can connect with their kids. In this essay from the podcast Uncuffed, producer Fonuamana Fuahala recounts connecting with his son — who he hadn’t seen in years — over a game of chess.  

When Chinese Flower Growers Helped the Bay Area Bloom

Santa Clara County stretches from San Jose up through Palo Alto and into the surrounding foothills. Today, it’s an area known for sprawling tech campuses and suburban neighborhoods, but for a large part of the 20th century, this landscape looked very different. Some would say it was blooming. KQED’s Gabriela Glueck brings us this story.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices