Fifth & Mission

The flagship news podcast of the San Francisco Chronicle. Producer/host Cecilia Lei and co-host Laura Wenus discuss the biggest stories of the day with Chronicle journalists and newsmakers from around the Bay Area. | Get full digital access to the Chronicle: sfchronicle.com/pod

News
Politics
801
Wildfires Update: Searching for the Glass Fire ...
Walk up a steep road through a scorched landscape with reporter Matthias Gafni in St. Helena. Gafni narrates his walk in the area where Cal Fire has been focusing its investigative teams on finding what might have started the Glass Fire.
4 min
802
San Francisco Opens Up: Is It Safe?
The city now allows restaurants and places of worship to welcome people back inside, but do people feel safe enough to go? Extra Spicy podcast host Justin Phillips and Nora Mishanec talk about how it works.
17 min
803
Wildfires Update: St. Helena
Reporter Trisha Thadani spent the day in this Napa County town covering the Glass Fire and talking to residents. One woman, considering various climate disasters, wonders, "Where else do I go?"
5 min
804
It's All Political: Trump Biden Debate 1: What ...
On The Chronicle's politics podcast, editorial board editor John Diaz and — GENTLEMEN, PLEASE! — political writer John Wildermuth join — EXCUSE ME! — host Joe Garofoli to analyze the first presidential — PLEASE LET HIM FINISH! — debate.
19 min
805
Wildfires Update: Castello di Amorosa
Wine critic Esther Mobley reports from the famous castle winery in Calistoga, which lost a farmhouse and all of its bottled wine in the Glass Fire. She also describes the "eerie situation" in fire-devastated Napa County.
5 min
806
Wine Country Ablaze Again
Napa and Sonoma counties are back to a familiar chaos. Homes, businesses, resorts and wineries have burned and thousands have fled ahead of burning embers. Firefighters dug in. And shadowing it all is a fear for California's future.
19 min
807
Wildfires Update: A Harrowing Escape
Reporter Matthias Gafni talks about an uncomfortably close call late Sunday night as he followed a city bus through flames as it evacuated residents of the Oakmont Gardens Senior Home in Santa Rosa.
6 min
808
The Bay Area's Coronavirus Long-Haulers
We often measure the toll of the pandemic by deaths — over 200,000 in the U.S. But what is of increasing concern is the long-term, perhaps even permanent, damage that COVID-19 can cause to even healthy young people.
19 min
809
Coronavirus Inequality in the Mission District
Jon Jacobo, head of San Francisco's Latino Task Force, discusses why Latinos make up more than half of San Francisco's positive coronavirus cases despite being just 15% of the population.
23 min
810
Sequoias vs. Climate Change and Wildfires
It’s a pivotal moment in the history of the state’s redwood forests. Save the Redwood League president Sam Hodder argues for why we need redwood trees to fight climate change and restore balance to our natural environment.
21 min
811
Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants
Food critic Soleil Ho talks about this year's Top 100 list and how the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything about the Chronicle tradition. Some of her picks have closed. Others have pivoted.
21 min
812
One Man's Desperate Search to Kick His Addictio...
Will Andrews was 23, homeless and addicted to heroin, then fentanyl. He agreed to let reporter Trisha Thadani follow him as he tried to get help. His story is one of personal struggle, but also of a broken system of care.
13 min
813
Executions Under Trump Split Catholics
Attorney General William Barr has restarted federal executions for a president who wants to exude toughness. He's also a devout Catholic, in a church that opposes the death penalty. Reporter Jason Fagone talks about the controversy.
18 min
814
Jackie Fielder: A Challenger From the Left
Heather Knight talks with California Senate candidate Jackie Fielder, a 25-year-old Democratic Socialist who's challenging Sen. Scott Wiener in the race for District 11.
20 min
815
Communal Living in a Pandemic
The Manor of Being in San Francisco includes 11 residents who share meals and values. Reporter Annie Vainshtein talks about how they've coped with the coronavirus pandemic and how they're protecting each other.
25 min
816
Six Months Into Our New Normal
What many assumed would be a temporary coronavirus shutdown has become our new way of life. Health reporter Erin Allday talks about what we’ve learned and how that may apply to the six months ahead.
22 min
817
A State Senator Battles QAnon
California Senator Scott Wiener has become the target of revolting online harassment and even death threats from followers of QAnon, a blatantly false delusion about shadowy pedophiles. Wiener is setting the record straight.
27 min
818
Trump Brings Climate Denial to a Burning Califo...
The president pays a visit as fires continue to endanger lives and foul air up and down the West Coast. Reporter Alexei Koseff recounts how Trump resisted Gov. Newsom’s call to confront the reality of climate change.
20 min
819
Police Violence in Vallejo
In the last five years in the city, at least 60 people, mostly people of color, have said they were victims of excessive force. And in the last 10 years, 19 people have been fatally shot by officers. Otis Taylor Jr. talks about his investigation.
27 min
820
San Francisco's Master of Disasters
They city is being battered by coronavirus, wildfires and more, and it's Mary Ellen Carroll's job to respond. The director of the Department of Emergency Management talks about how residents can cope with the chaos.
26 min
821
The Bay Area's Blade Runner Skies
What's causing our air to turn an apocalyptic orange? Is it safe to breathe? How long will this dystopian atmosphere stick around? Chronicle reporter Michael Cabanatuan has talked to scientists and is here to explain.
12 min
822
Coronavirus' Disproportionate Toll on Latinos
Latinos make up 16% of the population of Marin County, but 71% of coronavirus infections. Reporter Tatiana Sanchez talks about that disparity, which is wider in Marin than elsewhere, but exists all over the Bay Area and beyond.
16 min
823
Why There Was a Baby in the Assembly
Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks just had a baby in late July and wanted to vote by proxy to avoid coronavirus risks. When the Assembly speaker said no, Wicks drove from Berkeley to Sacramento and cast crucial votes while carrying her daughter.
26 min
824
Total SF: Pandemic News From the Kids
On this episode of the Total SF podcast, host Peter Hartlaub talks to Chris Colin, a Bernal Heights writer and parent who, on a whim, launched Six Feet of Separation, an online newspaper for the coronavirus era created entirely by kids.
36 min
825
A Fire's Hellish Path: How the Hennessey Fire R...
Chronicle reporters Matthias Gafni and Lizzie Johnson reconstruct the Hennessey lightning fire as it raced east from Napa County into Vacaville, burning homes, forcing people to flee for their lives, and stretching firefighters who didn’t have nearly enough resources.
25 min