Pastor Matt Grubb, June 1, 2025

By Andy Rodgers, June 1, 2025

A Ford Factory Changed Milpitas, Then It Bacame a Mall The Great Mall of Milpitas, in Santa Clara County, wasn't always a mall; it used to be a massive Ford auto factory. The San Jose Assembly Plant opened in 1955, after relocating from Ford's outdated Richmond location. The new factory put Milpitas on the map, transforming a sleepy agricultural to…

Pastor Scotty Cowan, May 25, 2025

Grant Clark, May 25, 2025By Grant Clark, May 25, 2025

Sitars and Symphonies: LA Composer Reena Esmail Fuses Indian Ragas with Western Rhythms We continue our California composers series with Reena Esmail. Her childhood in Los Angeles had two soundtracks: the Western classical music her parents loved, and the old, scratchy Bollywood tapes her paternal grandparents would play over and over. Those multic…

Pastor Sarah Lynn Grubb, May 18, 2025

Grant Clark, May 18, 2025By Grant Clark, May 18, 2025

In Rising Voices of El Cerrito's Young Poets, a Message About Resilience As our series about Californians and resilience continues, we hear from El Cerrito’s poet laureate, Tess Taylor, and students at Harding Elementary School. They wrote about what resilience means to them for a recently published anthology called “Gardening in the Public Flowerf…

Pastor Matt Grubb, May 11, 2025

Grant Clark, May 11, 2025By Grant Clark, May 11, 2025

An Historic Altadena Church, Lost to the Eaton Fire, Begins the Long Journey to Resurrection The Eaton Fire reached deep into the sanctuaries of Altadena’s faith community. It lost over a dozen places of worship: Baptist, Episcopalian, Jewish, Methodist, Muslim, and Evangelical Christian. There’s a lot of talk now about how and when people can rebu…

Pastor Roger Storms, May 4, 2025

Grant Clark, May 4, 2025By Grant Clark, May 4, 2025

This week marks 33 years since four police officers were acquitted in the brutal beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. That verdict exploded into days of rioting and unrest across the city. It also ignited a national conversation about police brutality, as well as race and inequality in the criminal justice system. This week we're featuring an epi…

Pastor Matt Grubb, April 27, 2025

Grant Clark, April 27, 2025By Grant Clark, April 27, 2025

J-Sei Home Closes After 30 Years, Leaving Bay Area Japanese Seniors in Need The 1960s and 70s were a pivotal time for community activism – with the civil rights and anti-war movements, the Black Panther Party, and student protests that established ethnic studies programs on college campuses. That activism led to a decades-old critical lifeline for …

Pastor Matt Grubb, Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025

Grant Clark, April 20, 2025By Grant Clark, April 20, 2025

California has grand plans to turn a stretch of abandoned railroad tracks into 300 miles of walking and biking trails, connecting the rolling hills of Marin County with the redwood forests near Eureka in Northern Humboldt. If completed, the Great Redwood Trail could become the longest rail-trail in the nation. But some Indigenous communities and ot…

Pastor Matt Grubb, April 13, 2025

Andy Rodgers, April 13, 2025By Andy Rodgers, April 13, 2025

It’s been a few months since wildfires devastated Los Angeles, and some people are just now starting the long process of repairing and rebuilding their homes. But mixed into the soot and ash can be some hidden dangers, including lead, asbestos, arsenic and lithium. These toxic materials were used to build those homes and got blown across LA. Scient…

Sarah Lynn Grubb, April 6, 2025

Andy Rodgers, April 6, 2025By Andy Rodgers, April 6, 2025

For more than 80 years, the Zorthian Ranch – nestled among the oak trees and steep canyons of Altadena – has been a home for artists, musicians and creatives seeking a different way of life. At this working ranch, people also tend animals and live close to the land, often growing their own food and generating their own energy. But it was almost com…

Pastor Matt Grubb, March 30, 2025

Andy Rodgers, March 30, 2025By Andy Rodgers, March 30, 2025

This weekend, Muslims around California will celebrate Eid al Fitr to mark the end of Ramadan. People observing the holy month have been fasting from dawn to dusk. And although fasting is a big part of Ramadan, so is the food people eat to break the fast each night. Small shops like Besan’s International Market in San Bruno are key to observing Ram…

Sarah Lynn Grubb, March 23, 2025

This month marks the anniversary of the resolution of a landmark student strike at San Francisco State, on March 21, 1969. Patrick Salaver helped organize the protests, demanding the university better reflect and support students of color and admit more non-white students. The protests also led to the creation of the nation’s first-ever college of …

By Andy Rodgers, March 9, 2025

Pastor Matt Grubb, March 16, 2025

We’re taking a long train ride on the California Zephyr. The Amtrak line winds through Emeryville, Sacramento, Truckee and then heads east toward Chicago. Parts of the trip are spectacularly beautiful, with scenes of the Rocky Mountains, Donner Lake and the Truckee River. This route also holds so much rich California history – a portion of it is cl…

Pastor Matt Grubb, March 9, 2025

Pastor Matt Grubb, March 2, 2025

For many Californians, winter means snow. But alongside the skiers, snowboarders and snowshoers awaiting the latest weather forecasts, there’s another group of snow obsessives in our state: snow scientists. They measure California’s snowpack every day in order to better predict our statewide water supply for the coming year. Some of the most cuttin…