Jeremy Dalmas

It’s not just you. That morning commute is getting longer and longer. As the local economy picks up steam, more and more people are getting in their cars, riding BART, and hopping on their bikes to get to work. This means everyone is spending more time on the road and is doing it less comfortably.

It’s been a year and a half since the fire at the Ghost Ship warehouse in East Oakland killed 36 party-goers. And new information about the tragedy is still coming out.

April 15th just passed and you hopefully finished paying the IRS. But, if you’re an independent contractor in San Francisco your taxes to the city are due next on May 31st.

San Francisco's Proposition B makes appointed commissioners give up their seats when they run for elected office.

The mayor and the Board of Supervisors appoint people to be commissioners, and there are dozens of commissions that oversee everything from the airport to juvenile probation to building inspections.

San Francisco's Proposition A is about financing power in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission deals with the city’s water, the city’s sewage, and it also provides electrical power to all city departments — from the airport to fire stations to schools.

This story originally aired in May of 2017.

San Francisco has the strongest economy of any city in the United States. And with business booming, a lot of eyes are on local corporations to see if they are giving back to the local community by paying their fair share in taxes.

Would you choose to pay a tax that you didn’t legally owe? A group of indigenous women in the East Bay have gotten together to ask for just that. They’ve levied a tax on residents for the land they are living on.

The city of Oakland is in the middle of the putting together a document that will decide the future of its downtown.

After a failed coup in 2016, the Turkish government closed 169 newspapers, publishers, and TV and radio stations. Thousands of reporters lost their jobs, or worse. Currently Turkey has more journalists in jail than any other country in the world.

2551 San Pablo Avenue had been getting code complaints for years. After it burned down, some residents had to move onto the street.

Earlier this year, Oakland City Council voted to stop banking with JPMorgan Chase because of the corporation’s investment in causes like the Dakota Access Pipeline and private prisons.

Parking isn’t easy in San Francisco.

If you’ve driven across the Bay Bridge this month you probably noticed the banner above the Treasure Island Tunnel that says “Armenian Genocide 1915.” It's been just over a century since the Ottoman Empire began to systematically kill what would eventually be 1.5 million Armenians. Waves of refugees immigrated to the Bay Area, fleeing the killings. Today, tens of thousands of people of Armenian descent live here.

Here's the sound we played as a clue. We asked you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

On Dec. 2, 2016, at approximately 11:30 p.m., a Friday night of electronic music was just beginning when a fire broke out at the Ghost Ship warehouse in East Oakland. It engulfed the warehouse in a matter of minutes, trapping partygoers inside the difficult to navigate building. Thirty-six people died.

While many living in warehouses are worried they could lose their homes, those affected most immediately were the almost two dozen people who lived at the Ghost Ship. They woke up the morning after the fire, to find themselves homeless.

Events like the one thrown the night of the Ghost Ship fire used to be a regular occurrence all over Oakland. But they’ve virtually died out, because venues fear drawing attention to themselves.

The Oakland mayor’s office officially knows of 18 large industrial spaces doubling as unpermitted homes, but other estimates say there are dozens more, maybe as many as 60.

Instead of ringing the doorbell, when you come by Craig Baldwin’s home on Valencia street, he asks you to stomp on the metal plate in the sidewalk.

• A history of warehouse spaces here in the Bay Area.
• How one warehouse is fighting to stay put.
• A conversation with someone who was displaced by the Ghost Ship fire.
• A look back at one space that tried for years to comply with local permitting requirements.

Clerical workers at the University of California went on strike across the state on Tuesday to push forward contract negotiations.

Here's the sound we played as a clue. We asked you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it. 

Prop V is known as "the soda tax" and "the grocery tax," but on the ballot it’s “the tax on distributing sugar-sweetened beverages.” Okay, so what’s a "sugar-sweetened beverage?"

It’s election season. So of course, I’m at the bar El Rio in San Francisco doing what everyone loves to do over a beer -- chat about municipal bonds. I’m asking people:  Do you know what a bond is?

Harbir Batth isn’t having a good day. Not many fares.

“It's been terrible,” he tells me.

Then finally, some hope appears: a doorman for the Parc 55 Hotel in Union Square hails the cab over. They hop in and we’re headed to North Beach.

All week long, we've been playing this sound and asking you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

Before the third meeting of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability and Fairness in Law Enforcement even began, it was easy to see evidence of the strained relationship between the San Francisco Police Department and the community they serve.

When the rain arrived this winter, so did a line of tents along Division Street beneath the Central Freeway in San Francisco.

Cris Miranda is a believer. “Dude! I feel like I'm living inside of a novel,” says the Bay Area-based podcaster.

Ever seen those huge billboards above the 101 Freeway, advertising for the HempCon or this weekend’s Emerald Cup in Sonoma, and wondered what these marijuana festivals and competitions are all about?