KQED's Forum KQED

As the war between Israel and Hamas enters its eighth month, U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators are awaiting an official response from Hamas on a proposed ceasefire deal that calls for the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. The latest reports have stated that talks have broken down as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel will invade the Palestinian city Rafah – where one million displaced Gazans are seeking refuge – “with or without a deal.” We’ll look at where negotiations stand, what it would take to end the war in Gaza and what the next steps might be.

Guests:

Bel Trew, chief international correspondent, The Independent

Missy Ryan, national security correspondent, Washington Post

Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent, The Economist - author of "How Long Will Israel Survive? The Threat From Within"

What’s next for TikTok? President Biden signed legislation on April 24 that would ban the popular video-sharing app unless its Chinese owner ByteDance sells to a U.S-based company. Supporters of the law say TikTok poses national security risks, warning that the Chinese government could potentially access sensitive user data or spread misinformation on the app. ByteDance says it has no intention of selling and will fight in the courts to stay in business. We’ll look at what it all could mean for TikTok and its 170 million users in the US.

Guests:

Tim Wu, professor of law, science and technology, Columbia Law School - His latest book is "The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age"

Suzy Loftus, Head of Trust and Safety, TikTok USDS

Sapna Maheshwari, business reporter, New York Times - covering TikTok and emerging media

Vivian Xue, TikTok creator; CEO, Pamper Nail Gallery - based in San Francisco

Beginning as early as next year you might see a new fixed monthly charge of up to $24 on your electric bill. That’s if the California Public Utilities Commission approves a proposal to rework how we pay for power. The CPUC, which is taking a vote next week, says that the new charge would lower electricity costs for many Californians. But the reality is more complicated. We take a close look and hear what’s driving high electricity prices in the state.

Guests:

Ben Christopher, reporter, CalMatters

Loretta Lynch, former President, California Public Utilities Commission

In her new book of poems, “woke up no light” Leila Mottley writes: play dead / play docile / play along / stare a beast in its mouth and dare it to bite / this is the only way to know if / the country is still hungry. We talk to Leila Mottley, who was Oakland’s 2018 Youth Poet Laureate, about her poetry, coming of age in the nation’s gaze after the enormous success of her novel, “Nightcrawling,” and her hometown of Oakland.

Guests:

Leila Mottley, author, "woke up no light: poems" - Mottley was the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. She is also the author of "Nightcrawling," a New York Times bestseller.

“Intimacy is about relationships within a person’s self, with others, with communities, with nature, and beyond,” writes Alice Wong, founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project and editor of the new anthology, “Disability Intimacy.” When Wong began work on the book, she googled what would become its title — and what was she found was “basic AF” and made her go “Ewwwwww.” That inspired her to commission and collect writing from people with disabilities about what intimacy meant to them. The essays reflect on friendships, parent-child bonds, romantic relationships and disability communities. We’ll hear from Wong and some of the anthology’s contributors about the intimacy of sharing and disclosing our relationships with ourselves, with others and with disability itself. And we’ll hear their stories of “love, care and desire” — and the personal and systemic change that intimacy can bring.

Guests:

Alice Wong, disabled activist, writer and community organizer; editor, "Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire"

s.e. smith, freelance journalist whose essay in "Disability Intimacy" is "Skin Hunger and the Taboo of Wanting to be Touched"

Yomi Sachiko Young, Oakland-based disability justice activist; dreamer whose essay in "Disability Intimacy" is "Primary Attachment"

Melissa Hung, writer, editor and journalist whose essay in "Disability Intimacy" is "The Last Walk"; founding editor in chief, Hyphen - an independent Asian American magazine; former director, San Francisco WritersCorps

In 2013, inmates at Pelican Bay, a supermax California prison designed to hold large numbers of inmates in isolation, went on a hunger strike to protest indefinite solitary confinement. The hunger strike grew to include nearly 30,000 California prisoners, and led to an overhaul of prison policies. A new documentary “The Strike” chronicles the prisoner-led resistance and features interviews with men who spent decades in confinement in tiny isolated cells. We talk about the historic hunger strike and the evolution of solitary confinement policies in the state and country.

Guests:

JoeBill Muñoz, director and producer, The Strike; award-winning documentary filmmaker; former KQED video intern in 2018

Lucas Guilkey, director and producer, The Strike

Jack Morris, former prisoner in Pelican Bay; program manager, the Re-entry Integrated Services, Engagement and Empowerment Program (RISE) at St Johns Community Health (SJCH) in Los Angeles, where he serves the formerly incarcerated community

Dolores Canales, director of community outreach, The Bail Project