Crosscurrents

San Francisco’s Mayor Daniel Lurie has made changes to the city’s harm reduction policy. And not everyone supports them. Today, how the new policy is impacting the people who receive these services. Then, a Black culture space in the city is closing its doors for a few years.

For more than 25 years , the City of San Francisco has used an approach called “harm reduction” to help people struggling with substance abuse. It’s common in California . The key tenet of harm reduction is: meet people where they’re at, so that they can manage their substance use and stay alive. That can involve giving people clean supplies to consume drugs. But the harm reduction approach is at...

A treasured Black arts and culture space, in the Fillmore-Western Addition neighborhood, is closing for a few years. The African American Art & Culture Complex has served the community for 37 years. They’re closing so the city can do seismic renovation on the building.  But what happens when an important community space has to shut down, even temporarily Ashley Smiley, who goes by her last nam...

Now for some poetry that celebrates queer brown love. Here is San Francisco poet Flavia Elisa Mora reading her piece “Xochipilli.” 

The Public Media Journalists Association, or PMJA, just announced their 2026 winners and KALW is proud to have taken three awards, so today we bring the second place winner for Enterprise Journalism, our story about how unhoused community members find shelter and support at SFO.

Today, a tenant who is about to be evicted commemorates their apartment that hosted 35 years of performance. Then, a classic Dracula story gets revamped. Plus, a poem about another monster that refuses to die.

It’s been nearly 130 years since Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” was published . Over time, artists have reimagined the blood-thirsty monster in many ways. Now, San Francisco Playhouse is taking a stab at the classic story, with a feminist twist.

A dancer is evicted from a San Francisco home with deep roots in their experimental dance community.

Revisiting The Gay Life is a new 12-episode series from KALW’s Queer Power Hour . It explores a pivotal moment in SF’s LGBTQ history — from the rise of Harvey Milk to the early days of what would later be called AIDS.

It’s World Cup fever! So today, we go on a little Bay Area tour of how Jordanian and Algerian fans are getting hyped for their big match. 

The Jordanian national soccer team is playing in the World Cup for the first time in history. The Bay Area Jordanian American community is a tightly knit community of just a few thousand people. A group of enthusiastic fans gathered for a street party in downtown San Mateo to celebrate. Today, Crosscurrents host takes us to that street party, to hear what this historic moment means for Jordanians...

"Nashama" is the nickname of the Jordanian national soccer team. It's a word for a group of people who are chivalrous and brave...but it also relates to being generous and hospitable. Mazra, a restaurant in San Bruno, serves food from the Levant—the area that covers Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. Today, how this spot on the Peninsula embodies Nashama through food. 

Ahead of the Jordan-Algeria World Cup match, KALW's Hana Baba headed over to a favorite community store—South Berkeley Meat and Produce. People visit from all over the state to shop for nostalgic items from Algeria. It’s got a large butcher counter with all kinds of halal meat cuts, including a staple Algerian sausage called Merguez.

How far would you go to get your hands on a cassette tape? Today, we meet two music archivers from Oakland. First an Afghan man’s odyssey to preserve his cultural music. Then, a young woman from Sudan is digitizing old music cassettes for a new diaspora generation.

The Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in 2021, after the hasty conclusion to a 20 year U.S. occupation. Since then, music has been officially banned in the country. Musicians are driven underground, instruments are destroyed, and recordings are contraband. Here in the East Bay, one Afghan-American is working hard to preserve what he can. He’s digitizing tapes he’s sourced from back home and post...

Today, how the political fight over college access is impacting Bay Area students. Then, we bring you readings on grief, intimacy and rest from Black Women writers.

With graduation season wrapping up, many teenagers around the Bay Area are celebrating the end of high school and are making plans to begin college. But in Washington DC, policymakers are fighting over college access. In the past year, the Trump Administration has worked quickly to dismantle the Department of Education. And one of the major programs they want to eliminate is called TRIO, a federal...

“When We Exhale” is a new anthology collection of poetry, essays, and other writings, where Black women reflect on rest, grief, intimacy, cultural memory and healing. Jenee Darden, is the host of the KALW’s Sights and Sounds show recently welcomed the authors behind the anthology to our live event space in downtown SF. It was a night of poetry, fellowship, and connection. In this excerpt from the...

One San Francisco band has been going strong for 144 seasons. Today, we’re hitting the high notes with the Golden Gate Park Band’s music director. Then, the Conservatory of Flowers’ corpse flower is about to bloom again. Plus, we stop by the San Francisco dragon boat festival!

If you go out to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on any given Sunday from April to September… and you wander over to the concourse between the California Academy of Sciences and the DeYoung museum of fine arts… you’ll hear the Golden Gate Park Band playing at the Spreckels Temple of Music. And, when I say any Sunday, I mean it. Because the band is now in their 144th season. That’s since 1882! And...

Over the weekend, San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers announced that their corpse flower, named 'Scarlet,' would be blooming in the next 7 to 14 days. It’s an event that usually makes the news because these flowers can take up to ten years to reach their first bloom and they can smell like… death.  But they’re also endangered. And one of the Conservatory’s neighbors, the California Academy of...

As the Bay Area summer heats up, more people are spending time by the water, and sometimes you might catch the rhythmic and competitive sounds of Dragon Boat Racing. The sport is over two thousand years old and originates in China . The boats are long, thin and often decorated with dragon heads and tails. They are also very fast, powered by a team of either 10 or 20 people, these boats are propell...

For a decade, an Oakland center has been helping local young people discover the joy of writing. Today, we hear about their new anthology of works by 4th graders. Then, we find out how the whole city of San Francisco was blamed for a murder in its streets.   

In April 2023, tech executive Bob Lee was found near San Francisco’s Embarcadero with severe stab wounds. He later died from these injuries. Shortly after his death, some of the loudest voices in tech rushed to blame a chaotic, violent City.  Out of twelve murders that took place in the city that year, it was the only one to garner international attention, fueling a narrative that Lee was killed b...

KALW’s Jeneé Darden who grew up in East Oakland in the ‘80s and ‘90s… and her little kid self would’ve loved a place like Chapter 510 . The youth writing center provides a safe and empowering learning space for young writers. And Chapter 510 centers Black, brown and queer voices… and publishes their works.  Their latest book is “ When the Stars Bloom in Oakland: An Anthology of Poems by Fourth Gra...