From answering listeners’ questions on Bay Curious to investigating sexual assault in the yoga community, from following the migrant caravan to covering the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history, KQED reported on the issues you needed to know about this year. We’ve compiled a list of our most popular news stories — based on page views and other metrics — that grabbed our audience’s attention as the year comes to a close.
Google Earth view of Runways 28L and 28R at San Francisco International Airport. During a nighttime landing in July 2017, an Air Canada flight crew confused a crowded taxiway at the top of this image with their assigned runway, 28R. (Google Earth)
The National Transportation Safety Board released a trove of documentation collected after an incident in July 2017 in which an Air Canada jet narrowly avoided landing on a San Francisco International Airport taxiway crowded with airliners waiting to take off.
A pedestrian walks by the vacant Bank of Stockton on June 27, 2012, in Stockton, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Wage stagnation. Rising housing prices. Loss of middle-class jobs. The looming threat of automation. These are some of the problems facing Stockton and its residents, but the city’s mayor, Michael Tubbs, says his city is far from unique.
“I think Stockton is absolutely ground zero for a lot of the issues we are facing as a nation,” Tubbs said.
Tubbs is coordinating an effort to test a new way to sustain residents: universal basic income, or UBI. For one year, several dozen Stockton families will get $500 a month, no strings attached.
Octopuses observed at the Davidson Seamount, an ocean habitat about 80 miles to the southwest of Monterey. (Ocean Exploration Trust/NOAA)
It was at the very end of a 35-hour expedition when scientists spotted the octopuses — more than a thousand of them — in a previously unexplored rocky habitat near the Davidson Seamount, an ocean habitat about 80 miles southwest of Monterey.
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They were found in “brooding” positions, with their arms inverted as they covered their eggs, which they cemented to rocks approximately 10,000 feet below the ocean surface.
It was the first time scientists had found this type of cluster on the West Coast, and only the second time they have ever been observed.
In the world of yoga, where there is a long history of sexual misconduct and abuse of power, experts and leaders say, the #MeToo soul-searching is only beginning. (Mark Fiore/KQED)
Women are telling their stories amid a global outcry and reckoning over sexual misconduct and abuse — the #MeToo movement — at the highest levels of political office and in many industries, such as film, media and food. The growing number of accounts has forced many businesses and sectors to examine their codes of conduct, reporting processes and handling of bad actors.
In yoga, experts and leaders say, that soul-searching is only beginning.
KQED found that the yoga community is struggling to rein in this sexual misconduct and abuse in its ranks. Some experts believe the lack of oversight of teachers and schools is adding to the problems of an industry experiencing explosive growth, where touch and trust are a fundamental part of the practice.
The Miles Brothers, Still from ‘A Trip Down Market Street,’ 1906. (Courtesy of Rick Prelinger)
More than a century after San Francisco’s deadly 1906 earthquake, a film reel surfaced at a flea market with nine minutes of footage capturing the city two weeks after the devastation.
The long-lost find portrays some of the city’s post-quake decimation, including City Hall with its dome nearly destroyed, the San Francisco Chronicle said. Much of the city was flattened and thousands were killed in the “great quake” and ensuing fire on April 18, 1906.
Perry Foster lived in early 2016 on Division Street between Harrison and Bryant streets. He was from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he was still a legend among high school classmates as the football star who led his team to an undefeated season and a state championship. Foster died on April 11, 2018. (Dan Brekke/KQED)
Two years ago, a KQED News reporter had a brief meeting with a frank, thoughtful homeless man on the streets of San Francisco. When the man died earlier this year, the reporter learned there was more to his story.
U.S. Department of Defense personnel install barriers requested by Customs and Border Protection at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, under the Operation Secure Line anticipating the arrival of Central American migrants heading toward the border on Nov. 13, 2018. (Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images)
The U.S. government said it was starting work in November to “harden” the border crossing from Tijuana, Mexico, to prepare for the arrival of a migrant caravan leapfrogging its way across western Mexico.
The caravans became a campaign issue in U.S. midterm elections and President Trump ordered the deployment of over 5,000 military troops to the border to help fend off the migrants. Trump has insinuated without proof that there are criminals or even terrorists in the group.
Nasim Najafi Aghdam, who shot three people and then killed herself at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, was upset with the company, San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said during a press conference. (San Bruno Police Department)
A woman shot and wounded three people before fatally shooting herself at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno in April.
The suspect, 39-year-old Nasim Najafi Aghdam, resided in the Riverside County city of Menifee. To earn income, she created videos for a number of websites, including YouTube.
The California Democratic Party voted to endorse state Sen. Kevin de León (R) over U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (L) for U.S. Senate. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images and Bert Johnson/KQED)
The California Democratic Party’s executive board voted to endorse state Sen. Kevin de León for U.S. Senate over Sen. Dianne Feinstein. De León received 65 percent of the vote, compared to just 7 percent for Feinstein. An endorsement required 60 percent.
Firefighters drive along dozer line near the Ferguson Fire in Stanislaus National Forest, near Yosemite National Park, eight days after the fire broke out in mid-July. (Noah Berger/AFP/Getty Images)
A Cal Fire bulldozer operator killed in mid-July during the first hours of the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite was working alone on a treacherous jeep trail when his 42,000-pound machine crashed down a mountainside.
A Cal Fire report on the death of Braden Varney, 36, also says that fire commanders on the scene of the Ferguson Fire had been unable to communicate with him for more than four hours before he was discovered dead in the wreckage of his machine.
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The report, which KQED obtained under a California Public Records Act request, suggests incident commanders and the bulldozer crew were lax in following basic safety protocols prior to the fatal incident early the morning of July 14.
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