Fifth & Mission

Chronicle columnist Leah Garchik announced in her May 1 column that today, she is leaving the newspaper after 47 years. Host Peter Hartlaub and reporter Steve Rubenstein sat down with Garchik to talk about her first day in San Francisco, her beginnings as a columnist and what she plans to do next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Editor in chief Audrey Cooper and business reporter Catherine Ho discuss the latest in San Francisco’s efforts to ban the sale of e-cigarettes — and how Juul, the nation’s largest e-cigarette company and a fast-growing presence in the city, is pushing back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco Mayor London Breed didn't campaign on transportation issues, but she zeroed in on them once she took office. Rachel Swan on why the mayor is gunning for Muni, and the future of transit in the city.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should San Francisco raise taxes on prosperous companies to help pay for the city's most gripping problems? Between a tax on IPO's, Uber and Lyft and exorbitantly paid CEO's voters will have plenty of options to choose from in November. We break down the three business tax proposals headed to November's ballot, focusing on the most recent one that would raise money for a new mental health care system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What bills are alive in the California Legislature after a month of big deadlines? We have the rundown, from proposals to expand housing to vaccine exemptions to a push to let bars serve until 4 a.m. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco's Little Italy has seen a spike in empty storefronts. Residents, business owners and city officials blame a slow permitting process, earthquake construction and other challenges. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Crime reporter Megan Cassidy speaks to Metro Editor Demian Bulwa at the halfway point through the criminal trial of the Ghost Ship fire, where two men are charged in the deaths of 36 people who died in the 2016 blaze. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Drivers, it's not your imagination: the Bay Area has the worst roads in the nation. We also have concrete crumbling from bridges and freeway overpasses. How did we get to this point -- and what will it take to fix it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reporter Michael Cabanatuan joins Demian Bulwa to talk about 1,400-acre Foothills Park. It's usually populated with wildflowers, deer and lawbreakers. That is, anyone who doesn't live in Palo Alto. The park is restricted to residents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A strange state law allows school districts to charge teachers who get very sick for their own substitutes. But San Francisco Unified School District appears to be as strict as possible on the subject - including prohibiting a Lowell High teacher who needed a liver transplant from using his colleagues' donated sick time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Columnists Ann Killion and Scott Ostler on whether the team's move to San Francisco will turn then into a symbol for Big Tech. Also: What’s with that co-owner pushing a Raptors player? And is Golden State's championship run coming to an end? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Immigration reporter Tatiana Sanchez talks about 29-year-old New Latthivongskorn, the first undocumented immigrant to graduate from the UCSF Medical School in it 155-year history. Latthivongskorn is a beneficiary of DACA, a program that protects young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children from deportation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As high school seniors graduate and prepare to head off to universities, the college admissions scandal continues to play out inside federal courtrooms. Many of the defendants have ties to the Bay Area and numerous California schools have been called into question. The scandal has raised questions about parenting, privilege and education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Criminal justice reporter Megan Cassidy joins Audrey Cooper to talk about a 113% increase in drug overdoses in California prisons since 2015. Nearly 1,000 people received emergency medical attention in 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Randy Shilts may have been the first out gay reporter at a major American newspaper. In 1982, he began writing about what would soon come to be known as AIDS. He would become it's top Chronicler — and it would kill him. An episode of the Chronicle's history podcast, Not Your Century.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The A's would love to build a baseball cathedral on the waterfront, just like the Giants. Can they pull it off? And would that be good for Oakland? Phil Matier and Susan Slusser join Demian Bulwa to answer those and other questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

J.D. Morris joined The Chronicle days after the Camp Fire broke out, transforming his plans to report on PG&E. In this episode, he and Business Editor Owen Thomas take you inside how we’ve covered this multifaceted story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're sharing an episode of the San Francisco City Insider podcast. When 33-year-old Jeffrey Choate’s parents saw their son, homeless and addicted to heroin and meth, in Heather Knight's Chronicle column, they — and he — wanted to tell his story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

East Bay Columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. talks about the controversial arrests, fatal shootings and police intimidation of black and brown people in Vallejo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco General Hospital has finally changed its billing practice so patients will no longer be charged $92,000 for a simple appendectomy or $24,000 for bumps and bruises. But in today's broken health care system, that's not the end of the story. Columnist Heather Knight talks about an effort to ban these bills statewide and how City Hall has promised to scrutinize S.F. General's budget requests in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices